Interference from interest groups, politically connected stakeholders and corrupt officials has thwarted efforts by successive governments to get unfit vehicles brought up to standard or banned from the roads.
Despite the stated objective of nearly every government to have unfit vehicles removed and an Awami League promise in 2010 to get motor vehicles over 20 years of age off the capital’s roads, nothing has been done.
The latest drive started yesterday by the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), Home Ministry and Road Transport Ministry, with support from the police and executive magistrates, was supposed to have kicked off in May.
It was announced by the Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader in April this year.
A BRTA official, on condition of anonymity, told the Dhaka Tribune that unfit transport owners had the upper hand over the authorities because of political influence and the corruption of influential officials and traffic police.
“Unfit vehicles ply the roads in violation of set laws, posing a threat to commuters’ safety and causing environmental pollution,” he said.
The BRTA official said there are at least 30 types of technical and physical tests that vehicles are supposed to pass to be fitness certified, but few vehicles are subjected to them.
A recent World Bank study on urban bus operations in Dhaka also found that the public transportation sector was riven with inconsistent practices and uneven enforcement.
The study said past efforts to regulate and reform bus operations have been thwarted by the efforts of business syndicates, politicians, police and trade unions, allowing unsafe, polluting buses to operate on Dhaka’s already choked roads.
A strategic transport plan had been prepared for Dhaka, but effective mplementation would require action on many fronts.
According to the study, most buses in Dhaka are more than 20 years old, emit black smoke, are badly dented, are vulnerable to accidents due to faulty brakes, lack signal lights and rear view mirrors and use illegal hydraulic horns.
The majority of the unfit CNG-run auto-rickshaws, a large number of minibuses, and more than half a million rickshaws operate with fake licenses.
Traffic congestion, it said, discouraged owners from introducing new buses because of the reduced daily passenger loads that buses can carry. Police reportedly demanded bribes in the process of checking licenses and fitness documents, and to avoid requisitioning of vehicles for police duty.
To cope with this system, bus companies often make routine monthly payments to all police box and police station officers along their routes, the study says, adding: “Yet these payments do not reach street level police, who respond by stopping buses arbitrarily, thereby adding chaos and unpredictability to their corrupt transactions.”
The survey study found that the Road Transport Committee (RTC) collects bribes for route permits, and bargains to raise the bribe price. The BRTA, it said, takes bribes for issuing driving licenses, blue books, registration numbers, and fitness certificates, and to provide timely service. A portion of the funds collected goes to senior BRTA management, and to political and transport association leaders.
In addition to these examples where bus owners, drivers and staff are the victims of corruption, these actors also engage in proactive corrupt practices themselves.
Mini-bus staff are given early warnings from BRTA – for a price – about when mobile courts will come into action, and the illegal, extra seats are taken out of the bus for the duration. Drivers caught with fake licenses don’t go to the trouble of appearing before the traffic section to pay the fine and regain the license, but rather obtain a new fake license costing more than the fine.
Political organisations also take their cut. Owners’ associations and trade unions collect not only annual membership fees, but also daily fees at key checkpoints; a portion is allocated to party leaders, and most of the rest to leaders of the associations and unions, with almost nothing left for the rank and file.
Important party leaders dominate the bus owners’ associations, and have a key role in route allocations for all types of vehicles – whether fit or unfit. These are, in turn, given without consideration to traffic congestion, in order to accommodate powerful clients, and to maximise revenue from formal and informal fees.
Commuters blamed the police and BRTA officials for the state of affairs in the public transport sector, corroborating some of the findings of the World Bank study.
However, government officials, police and bus owners implicated in the report denied all allegations, and defended themselves repeatedly with practically the speech as mobile teams continued their drives against unfit vehicles.
When contacted, Khandaker Enayet Ullah, president of the Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Malik Samiti [Bangladesh Road Transport Owner’s Association] and secretary general of the Dhaka Sarak Paribahan Malik Samiti [Dhaka Road Transport Owner’s Association], told the Dhaka Tribune: “The BRTA mobile teams keep an eye on which buses are unfit and are taking action.”
BRTA Chairman Nazrul Islam told the Dhaka Tribune: “The decision to launch this drive against unfit vehicles was taken at a meeting of a task force of the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges.”
The task force is comprised of officials from the BRTA, the Roads and Highways Division, the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority, the police and associations of motor vehicle owners.
The BRTA chairman said mobile courts would clamp down on unfit vehicles all over the country.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police Joint Commissioner (Traffic) Moslem Uddin told the Dhaka Tribune: “The drive against unfit vehicles is a continuous process, and traffic police have fined and seized a large number of unfit vehicles from the city roads.”
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority data shows that some 313,000 motor vehicles without fitness certificates are in operation all over the country. Some 93,600 out of the roughly 800,000 motor vehicles in use in Dhaka city, are not fitness certified.
