Purpose of Study

1
Bangladesh Improving Governance
Issues Initiatives
2
Transparency Internationals Corruption perception
Index
3
Corruption is Increasing
4
Bangladesh is paying a high price for
mis-governance and corruption, resulting in lost
economic growth
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Substantial Governance Related Work Program

• Institutional Governance Review
• Anti-Corruption Report
• Financial Accountability Assessment
• Procurement Assessment
• Survey on Urban Service Delivery
• Survey of households, businesses and civil
  servants on governance-related issues

6
Mainstreaming the Governance Agenda

• Energy Sector
• Financial Sector
• Education Sector
• Health Sector

7
Key Partners

• PROSHIKA (A large Bangladeshi NGO)
• 40 Community-Based Organizations
• Survey Research Systems (SRS)
• Public Affairs Center (Bangalore)
• AUSAID, CIDA, Netherlands, UNDP and USAID

8
Political Economy Dimensions

• Role of state wide-scale nationalization
  post-independence
• Tight control over resources by the elite
  patronage network dating back to the military
  dictatorship
• Heavy reliance on personal networks, resulting in
  pervasive patron-client relationships
• Well organized interest groups influence
  political decisions

9
Political Economy Dimensions

• Significant discrepancy between private agendas
  and public agendas
• The poor lack voice and often have to attach
  themselves to a patron to survive
• Grudging acceptance of the growing plunder of
  state resources
• Confrontational political environment

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Strengthening Financial Management
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Issues in Financial Management

• Lack of medium-term fiscal framework
• Recurrent development budgets prepared
  separately not linked
• Weak tax administration low revenue effort
• Corruption delays in procurement
• Lack of internal control

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Issues in Financial Management

• Deficiencies in budget monitoring reporting
• Delays in external audit limited attention to
  audit objections
• Weak parliamentary oversight
• Limited effort to measure development impact of
  expenditures

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Overview of Surveys

• Urban Service Delivery
• Covered 11 services
• Four cities (47 of Urban Population)
• 2,400 Households
• 900 in Dhaka
• 600 in Chittagong
• 500 in Khulna
• 400 in Rajshahi

• Governance Survey
• Covered 3,000 households
• 1,500 enterprises
• 1,500 civil servants

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Satisfaction with Services ( of All Households)
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Education Sector
16
Education Sector
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Education Sector
Data from the 2000 Household Income Expenditure
Survey show that about 75 percent of the
allocations for the Food for Education program do
not reach any household. Government has decided
to monetize this program from July 1, 2002.
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Health Sector
19
Electricity
20
Electricity
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Electricity

• Slum dwellers pointed out that they had to pay
  Tk50 per light bulb per month (for use after
  sunset and before 500 a.m.). At existing rates,
  legally connected households pay Tk13-15 for the
  same light bulb for 24 hours supply.

22
Water

• Slum dwellers pointed out that they had to pay as
  much as Tk2 per bucket of water, which is several
  times the price paid by those who have legal
  connections (the official price in Dhaka, for
  example, is Tk4.33 per 1,000 liters)

23
Police
24
Police
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Land Registration
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Land Registration

• As a result of bribes paid, the registered price
  of land was reduced by, on average, 25 percent.
• The loss in Government revenue from this item
  alone is estimated at Tk400 million annually,
  enough to build 600 primary schools or pay the
  annual salaries of 17,500 teachers

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Bribing to Borrow
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Bribing to Borrow
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Tied in Red-Tape
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A Tax to evade a Tax
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Taxing Trade

• Import Permit Six signatures, four weeks, and a
  bribe equal to 85 percent of the permit fee
• Export Permit Five signature two weeks, and a
  bribe equal to 197 percent of the authorized fee
• Duty Drawback Four signature two weeks, and a
  bribe equal to 192 percent of the established fee

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The Bureaucrats View
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Corruption is Increasing
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Getting a Promotion
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Improving Governance

• Re-examine the role of State
• Improve public sector efficiency by reforming the
  incentive system, modernizing human resource
  management, overhauling the cadre system,
  revamping the rules of business, and implementing
  a broad-based training program
• Make Government more accountable by
  strengthening national pillars of integrity

36
Improving Governance

• Decentralize and bring government closer to the
  people in order to improve the quality of service
  delivery
• Promote community involvement in overseeing
  service delivering agencies by including them on
  monitoring bodies, autonomous boards, etc.

37
Improving Governance

• Ensure independence of regulatory agencies and
  strengthen institutional capacity of
  parliamentary standing committees
• Encourage service delivering entities to publish
  "Client Charters informing clients of what
  service standards to expect. Publicly post prices
  for all services.

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Improving Governance

• Implement a priority program to improve law
  order and the system of justice.
• Institutionalize user surveys to provide users
  with regularly updated information on prices
  charged, time lags in availaing services,
  satisfaction levels, bribes, etc.