Editorial
Graft in land offices
Antidote lies in computerising land records
We are seldom surprised by reports of bribe taking in public establishments. Nevertheless, as reported in this newspaper yesterday, the method employed by a land office in Chittagong, the wanton manner in which the staff had gone about taking bribe from the public who were seeking their service, has startled us.
The entire complement of staff of Chikandondi land office of Hathazari Upazilla was caught red-handed by officials of the anticorruption commission, who happened to be there in connection with a complaint against one of the officials of the said land office, either taking bribe or having graft money on their person. It was a case of netting not one or two, but five birds in one drive, since all of them were found with cash that they could not account for. And that too these people had not received their salary for the month. More than a hundred thousand taka was found scattered all over the place, apparently collected from those that had gone in connection with sale, purchase or transfer and mutation of their landed property.
Just imagine if such a large amount of money passes under the table in one day in one small land office in the country what is the volume of graft that is transacted in all the land offices in the country. The irony is that palms have to be greased for legitimate services that are supposed to be provided to the public in exchange for laid down fees.
This is but, unfortunately, an abhorrent manifestation of the vice that is prevalent in most public offices. Land record offices are perhaps one of the service providers that earn substantial revenue for the government, and dishonest officials do not only deprive the government exchequer of large sums in revenue, their interpolation of, and tampering with land records, distort records related to holding and land ownership.
While corruption will take time to be purged from society, as for now, the government as a matter of urgency should go for computerisation of documentation of all records related to land transaction. This could help reduce incidence of graft and bribery in a very large public service organisation.
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