DCs want expenditure authority on govt projects

Several deputy commissioners (DCs) of the country have called on the government to bestow the expenditure authority for some development projects in their hands.

The administrative officers also proposed forming a district-level coordination committee on revenue collection.

They made the proposals on Wednesday, the second day of the three-day DC conference 2023.

Speaking at the annual event, Patuakhali DC Md Shariful Islam said, “At the upazila level, AC Land Office and Union Land Office are constructed by the Public Works Department or the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) with the money allocated by the Ministry of Lands. The DCs have no involvement in project acceptance, preparation, approval, tender process and implementation.

“LGED or the Public Works Department prepares the project according to their choice and implements it themselves. Due to lack of proper monitoring, the projects are not completed on time maintaining proper standards.”

He alleged that the LGED department takes no action even when contractors exceed a project’s deadline repeatedly.

“Due to the delay, the market value of the construction material increases and the contractor further delays the work on various pretexts,” he said.

The Patuakhali DC believed if the expenditure power of these works is handed over to the DCs, the projects will be completed properly through strict monitoring.

Several others, including Pirojpur DC Mohammad Jahedur Rahman and Jhalkahti DC Farah Gul Nijhum made similar recommendations.

Meanwhile, Gopalganj DC Kazi Mahbubul Alam said, “There is a need to form a coordination committee regarding revenue collection at the district level. This will help to identify new sources of revenue collection at the district and upazila levels.”

He also said getting complete information related to revenue collection from all departments of the district and identification of local problems in this regard will increase the dynamics of revenue collection.

Besides, Kurigram DC Mohammad Saidul Arif proposed to abolish the ward quota in the recruitment of primary school teachers.

“As there is a fixed quota in the recruitment of upazila-based teachers in government primary schools, many weak candidates are getting appointed as teachers, while qualified candidates are being left out. As a result, the quality of teaching is decreasing,” he said.