Ultra-poor programme in trouble

Avisit to Gunarigram and Lalmonipur project sites under Harishpur union of Natore Sadar upazila has unearthed some disturbing facts about the government's 40-day employment generation programme for the ultra-poor people. According to the project implementation officer there, "Only 27 labourers out of a total 52 at Gunarigram project and 19 out of the 50 labourers at Lalmonipur project are present. It has been found that the other workers never come to the job." Despite this, the wage of Tk 200 per worker, including the absentees, is being drawn from the banks. So, who is drawing the money against these ghost workers? We understand that these projects are running basically without proper monitoring which has allowed for such irregularities to take place.

The story does not end there. Investigation by this paper has found that certain members of local administration are allegedly arranging for the transfer of funds to the absentee labourers in exchange of "speed" money. The programme in question is worth Tk 8.85 crore with the aim of providing jobs for 11,064 ultra poor in 52 unions in seven upazilas of Natore district.

This is public money that is going down the drain and the real ultra-poor are being deprived of a perfectly good government project that is being run badly. Now the question is if this is the situation of graft in just two unions, what is happening elsewhere? There is of course no excuse for such lax monitoring of programmes that are cash-based and we hope the concerned ministry will take this "eye-opener" as a wakeup call and not rubbish the report, because at the end of the day this is public money that is being squandered.