Planning Minister MA Mannan says that despite government efforts to stem the vice, there were still some corrupt practices and misuse of money in development works.
While speaking at a training workshop Monday in Dhaka, he said Bangladesh's development capacity is on the rise and graft is concomitant in the process. He sees it as a global phenomenon.
"This is the reality in the world. But we will be continuing our pressure on the authorities to check the misdeeds," the minister told his audience.
"Sometimes our media friends expressed their resentment and unhappiness over the misdeeds in development works. But we will not be able to punish anybody through revolution, or applying a military system, or firing. We have to go with our law, rules and regulations for checking corruption," said a plain-spoken Mannan.
The minister was addressing the inaugural ceremony of the workshop on 'Capacity building for generating ender-responsive environmental data in focusing to SDGs' held under the auspices of the 'Strengthening Environment, Climate Change and Disaster Statistics (ECDS) project' of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
Presided over by Statistics and Information Division Secretary Mohammad Yamin Chowdhury, the function was also addressed by Director-General of the BBS Tajul Islam, Director-General (DG) of the Department of Disaster Management Atiqul Huq, DG of the Department for Women Affairs Ram Chandra Das, UN Women Representative in Bangladesh Gitanjali Singh and ECDS Project Director Md Rafiqul Islam.
The planning minister said feasibility study for big and important projects is a must although they sometimes relaxed the rules for the small projects.
"For quality development works, going by the government rules, including feasibility study, and in-time execution are imperative," he told the meet.
Statistics and Informatics Division Secretary Yamin Chowdhury said it would be difficult to make plans and progarmme for the country without data and statistics.
"Available data and statistics could help check system loss and misuse of public funds."
