Massive irregularities were found at a post office building construction project, insiders said. They said many new office buildings under the project had construction faults and mismatches in the procurement system. The project implementation authority – Directorate of Post – had purchased 17 vehicles instead of three as mentioned in development project proposal (DPP), they added. Besides, cracks were detected on the floors, walls, beams and columns of the newly built buildings. Sub-standard doors, windows, and bathroom fittings were also found the buildings. The irregularities were detected at the Tk 1.35 billion “Construction of ICT-Based Rural Post Offices Project,” by the government’s project monitoring and evaluation body, IMED. The project was completed in 2017 and the monitoring and evaluation by a third party consultant of the IMED was completed in June this year. According to the IMED, the Directorate of Post had built 600 new post offices instead of 750, repaired 1,269 post offices instead of 650, and bought 12,314 furniture instead of 6,000 (750 sets). The IMED team had visited 12 newly build post office buildings. It found cracks on the floors of two post offices while cracks on the walls of three buildings, cracks on the beams of two buildings, cracks on the columns of two buildings and low quality doors and windows at two other newly built post offices. The auditor general’s office raised a total of 11 audit objections on the purchases and procurements under the projects. Meanwhile, the project authorities spent Tk 6.0 million on paying honorarium to the project implementation-related committees, including tender evaluation committee, tender receiving and opening committee, procurement of stationary, vehicle maintenance etc. It also spent Tk10,000 for purchasing wooden chair per piece, spent Tk 3,000 for purchasing each of 750 notice boards and Tk 8,000 for each of 750 post-boxes at the post offices. Insiders said the spending for each of the components was higher as the prices for the wooden chair, post-boxes, and notice-boards were much lower than the project authority showed in its spending report. Meanwhile, the Directorate has revised the DPP two times as it changed the designs and different components of the scheme frequently. This correspondent tried repeatedly to get reaction from Director General Sudhashu Shekhar Bhadra and Additional Director General (Planning) Harunur Rashid of the Directorate of Post on Friday afternoon, but failed. Both of their mobile phones were switched off. The IMED’s report said that the Postal Directorate had taken four extra years and 20 per cent excess fund than their original estimation for completing the project. Besides, it changed four Project Directors during the six-year tenure. In the Tk 1.35 billion project, it spent Tk 7.0 million for travel allowance, fuel for cars and honorarium. According to the IMED report, they inspected 48 newly built post offices where they found non-plain floors and walls with cracks, cracks in the beam, faulty plasters on the walls, shoddy colour works on the buildings, sub-standard doors and windows, and sub-standard materials used in the toilets. The Directorate spent excess money than the allocation at the DPP for buying furniture and electronics products. It spent Tk 84.66 million instead of the provision of Tk 80 million in the DPP. Out of 750 sets of furniture, some 360 sets were not found at the post offices during the survey of the IMED team. The IMED report said in the original DPP, the Directorate of Post undertook the project to build 1,000 new rural post offices and repair 1,500 existing dilapidated post offices across the country. After the 2nd revision of the DPP, the authority changed its plans and design and decided to build 750 new post office buildings and repair 650 older ones. It also found that the officials from the project, Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, Planning Commission and IMED took Tk 0.5 million as the overtime bill for monitoring and over staying at the project areas. The Postal Directorate also purchased weigh machine directly from a company at Tk 15,000 each. It has also found that the authority procured extra 1,000 ceiling fans and additional furniture by spending 36.37 per cent in extra compared to the official estimations. The directorate procured the table-chair and other furniture in April-June 2017, the last quarter of the project tenure and handed over those to the newly built and repaired post offices in August 2017. The IMED has termed the misdeeds as financial irregularities and fiscal mismanagement. Additional Secretary (Post) of the Ministry of the Post and Telecommunication Shahadat Hossain told the FE that they are yet to get the IMED’s report. “If we find the irregularities in the project work, we must take necessary actions against the persons involved,” he said.
