“It amuses us a great deal to see the improvisation - showing, in one case, the use of 122 labourers in fixing a single toilet pan, and in another, a similar number of labourers in another office of the BTCL Khulna division, employed for cleaning shrubs and sewerage line.”

From a recent editorial in the Bangladesh Daily Star commenting on corruption in the Khulna offices of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL). The paper concluded that this one instance of corruption alone had cost the government, and consequently the tax-payers, more than Taka 300 million [US$ 4.5 million = € 3.5 million) over a period of seven years.

Related news: Corruption in the water sector: overlooked threat for development and sustainability, Source, 18 Aug 2008

Source: Bangladesh Daily Star, 22 Oct 2008

Tags: south asia, transparency