Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 5 Num 1098 Tue. July 03, 2007  
   
Editorial


Editorial
Spilling the beans
Probe into Rajuk should lead to its overhaul
The extent of anomalies, irregularities and corruption in Rajuk, the government agency for developing housing facilities in the city, as revealed by the taskforce appointed to look into its affairs, is alarming, to say the least.

The agency in charge of authorising building projects and distributing prime land in the form of residential plots to citizens virtually became a private preserve of the corrupt officials and employees, especially CBA leaders. It's difficult to point out a single area where Rajuk has performed satisfactorily! To begin with, it has been allowing a number of real estate developers, having no approval from Rajuk itself, to carry on housing business with it. Obviously, such illegal deals were the result of the developers heavily bribing Rajuk officials and employees. It seems rules and regulations had no place in its modus operandi and there was nobody to oversee its functioning. Or, those who were meant to oversee were themselves beneficiaries of dubious deals.

Rajuk officials and employees, from the very bottom to the top, allegedly managed to grab at least one piece of land in the city. This is another example of how they bypassed or manipulated the rules to take possession of residential plots meant for citizens.

There was the strident presence of CBA leaders who virtually controlled the recruitment process in Rajuk, which needed a lot of technically competent hands to operate professionally. But the CBA leaders made sure that only their candidates got the jobs.

Finally, they misappropriated several crores of taka deposited by plot recipients, through fraudulent means. They even didn't bother to return the unsuccessful plot seekers' money in many cases. The list of crimes committed by them is endless.

And all this happened in a government agency run with taxpayers' money!

The government has its job cut out: bring all the culprits to justice, meet the grievances of people at the receiving end of Rajuk's wrongdoing and thoroughly overhaul the administrative structure of Rajuk to avert its relapse into another cycle of corruption and expropriation of public property.