Bribery, corruption and irregularities have engulfed the services of the capital’s development authority RAJUK as people are bound to pay bribe at all steps, from design approval of a building to different monitoring phases of its construction, says a TIB report.
The report, titled ‘Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK): Challenges and Way to Good Governance’, was released at a press conference at Dhanmondi in the capital on Wednesday afternoon. The report presented by Fatima Afroz and Farhana Rahman of TIB has been prepared after a thorough research carried out in the relevant sector from November 2018 to December 2019.
The research report alleges that RAJUK officials take Tk 50,000 to Tk 2 crore for approving design of each building at the individual level.
Moreover, the report says, real estate developers are forced to pay an additional Tk 15-40 lakh for approval of design of more than 10-storied buildings. “For approving special projects they pay Tk 15 lakh to two crore as bribe,” it adds.
“Besides, delay in design approval, harassment in service providing, irregularities and corruption in inspection and violation of rules in implementation of design are also rampant,” the report adds. “Services regarding allocation of a plot, transfer of a plot, transfer of key to the flat are not available without bribe.”
The report also alleges that although there is no fee fixed for showing plot file by plot owner or plot broker, Tk 5-10 thousand is taken in exchange of the service. “Rajuk officials take Tk 2-5 thousand bribe for transferring key to flat which also is supposed to be free.” “At individual level, Tk 20-30 thousand bribe is taken to show ‘widened road’ and Tk 15-80 thousand for clearance certificate while it costs Tk one lakh to 10 lakh for clearance at real estate level.
Even though there is a fixed fee ranging from 31-60 thousand for lease document, still a bribe of Tk 50,000 to one lakh bribe is needed. Although there is no fee to receive the bill, still you have to pay 2 percent of the work order as bribe. The report also said huge amount of bribes are being paid for recruitment of RAJUK officials also.
At the press conference, the agency also placed several recommendations for curbing corruption in RAJUK. Among others, Executive Director of TIB Dr Iftekharuzzaman, and senior officials of the organisation were present at the press conference.
