Road repairing scandal

So the question is, where has the money gone? The answer lies in unbridled corruption, which a section of the DCC officials is resorting to in collusion with the contractors. The DCC has no database on the repaired roads, an administrative lapse exploited with neat precision by the corrupt elements. The same road is repaired or shown as being done up by the contractors. They are overpaid and doubly paid for doing a job that probably had no existence in reality!

Surprisingly enough, the issue has hardly been raised in parliament, nor have we ever heard politicians making any effort to bring it into full public glare. Yet, some organisation has to shoulder the responsibility of public money being plundered in the name of road repair. The LGRD and cooperatives ministry which oversees DCC activities, much to the latter's chagrin, has not done anything in this respect.

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And what the DCC itself has done? The mayor(s) complained many times over about his organisation's limitations, but is not on record having taken any step to curb corruption and palpable lack of transparency. In the ultimate analysis, it is the DCC's job to eliminate the dishonest elements from its fold. It is not clear how the DCC could allow its engineering department to develop a foolproof system of misappropriating the taxpayers' money year after year. It is a case of corruption being institutionalised at the heart of the system and in the capital city.

The mayor has said that from now on the DCC will colour-code the roads that have been repaired, apparently to avoid duplication of work. We believe this simple mechanism for closing a channel of corruption should have been introduced long ago.

The government must look into the matter, identify the gang of engineers and road repairers and bring them to justice. It is equally important to add the element of transparency to the DCC activities since it has been established beyond any doubt that lack of it can create many opportunities for the unscrupulous to pounce on.

Finally, the DCC wants more functional freedom -- an idea fully endorsed by the advocates of a dynamic local government -- but the organisation cannot perhaps make the most out of such freedom as long as it lives with corrupt elements.