Reforming RAJUK
THE 2010 Doing Business report jointly published by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation ranks Bangladesh at an unenviable 118 out of 183 economies in dealing with construction permits. However, we do not really need an indicator to tell us how poorly the Rajdhani Unnayan Katripokkha (Rajuk), Dhaka city's building authority, operates.
Most businessmen have probably experienced Rajuk's inadequacy firsthand while trying to get a construction permit for building their factory or warehouse. Often, people go ahead and start building without going through the proper approval process, side-stepping safety and environmental requirements.
Getting a construction license in a developing economy is often the most challenging aspect of doing business because the approval process is too cumbersome or the oversight too lax. Rajuk is infamously guilty on both counts for its inefficiency and bureaucracy. The Doing Business report estimates that on average it takes eight months to get a construction permit in Bangladesh. Compare that with Singapore where it takes 25 days or Ethiopia where it takes 60 days, and you can benchmark how inefficient we are. It is all the more ironic, given that Rajuk's Citizens Charter stipulates a 30-day time limit in issuing building permits.
Rajukis a large organisation in terms of its capital input and activities but its administrative structure, technical capacity, planning and coordination do not support the scale at which it is working. The organisation loses efficiency often because of corruption and a lack of inter-departmental coordination. Projects take so much time to implement that feasibility studies lose their value and, as a result, many of the otherwise valuable projects are either finally discarded or embroiled into endless litigation.
What makes Rajuk the 118th "best" place to get a building license? How can this change?
Primarily, Rajuk lacks the technical capacity and skilled manpower to review building plans. It has not been able to control the development of the city as per its plans. In fact, it has failed to finalise the city's master plan in 13 years, and the Bangladesh National Building Code is still waiting for legal status. However, the Ministry of Housing & Public Works has recently passed a very comprehensive version of the Building Construction Act in 2008, although experts doubt Rajuk's ability to implement it.
Rajuk can strengthen its planning functions through training and development activities, recruitment of skilled staff, in addition to process automation. It can also simplify its clearance process by putting up digital versions of its maps on the web and enabling online submission of drawing plans. These two measures can reduce the scope for errors and the back and forth of papers between architects and Rajuk officials. Moreover, this would eliminate the need for middlemen, while perhaps give some meaning to the highly publicised "Digital Bangladesh" initiative.
Secondly, Rajuk's organogram has not been updated since 1987. The original 5-member cell may have grown into a 30-member cell over the years with no clear demarcation of responsibilities. If you follow an organisational structure set 22 years ago with no subsequent reform there will obviously be mismanagement. That said, Rajuk should quickly draft an organisational restructuring plan and process it for approval in the relevant ministries. Unfortunately, this may not come about on its own as Rajuk's culture is not oriented to service delivery and its officers are not proactive in their approaches.
Rajuk is mismanaged as it is. Couple this with the need to coordinate with 12 other government agencies to get a single building approval and you can picture the pandemonium. To address the issue of inter-departmental coordination in 2007 Rajuk introduced a single window approach to procedures related to obtaining a building permit.
An approving panel consisting of representatives from the relevant agencies, such as the Department of Environment, Fire Department etc, was scheduled to meet every two weeks to discuss cases. However, this did not work out. The different agency representatives simply would not show up to these meetings and applicants still had to visit each agency responsible for different parts of construction approval separately due to inconsistencies in legislation. It is imperative that Rajuk develop a viable framework for coordination with other government agencies and prioritise strengthening its legal section.
Reforms in Rajuk are essential; both to better protect the public and to create an investment climate which is conducive to business activities. The trouble is that while it has the funds and resources to carry out many of the aforementioned reforms, the need to serve specific vested interests of individuals within the organisation means that few of the changes actually take place.
Unfortunately, this is the state of affairs prevalent not just in Rajuk but across the industry, and it is this mentality that has to change if reforms are ever to have their full effect. The only way to mitigate this is through strategic interventions that ensure the engagement of appropriate stakeholders to design reforms that will actually work.
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