A culture of delays

Bangladesh has lofty plans and ambitions of becoming a more powerful economy, first by becoming a middle-income country within this decade and then, by 2041, graduating to become a developed nation.

Unfortunately, as long as we continue to face delays in the completion of our projects and initiatives, we will continue to fall short of reaching our full potential as a nation. For example, more than two years have passed since initial discussions began to construct a Bogra-Sirajganj railway, and yet no work on the railway has begun yet.

When the chief engineer was questioned about the delay, the answer was all too familiar: Bureaucratic complexities. Time and time again, our pro-jects have to navigate through endless bureaucratic barriers -- barriers that continue to appear at every step of the project’s implementation.

This failure to transform our plans -- which are often well thought-out and would add tremendous value to the country -- into execution and implementation is extremely frustrating, and these repeated delays are holding us back, not only through depriving people of the benefits of these projects, but increasing their initial budget, thus wasting valuable tax-payer money.

It bears repeating: We will never reach our full potential as a nation if we cannot eliminate what has essentially become a culture of delay and lack of initiative, where through needless complexities, we have lost our ability to meet deadlines. A change is needed, across all sectors of the economy, to eliminate this approach, and start prioritizing timelines for project implementation.

Ultimately, it is the people of Bangladesh who suffer due to this lack of initiative.

 

Source: Dhaka Tribune