The Color of Corruption

Corruption in its simplest form is the act in which one seeks personal gain throughperforming illegitimate acts such as bribery, extortion and other misuses of power. InBangladesh, the majority of us is familiar and has experienced first-hand these acts ofcorruption. Bribing the Police sergeant, which otherwise requires the driver to gothrough the painful and time consuming process of paying fines. Bribing the bankmanager and the survey officer to grant a big loan against a small or more often, anon-existent property… The list goes on. While we can close our eyes and ears to such“everyday” matters, there are a few major issues that are in dire need of attentionand action. If these issues are not handled with care and urgency right now, our ownexistence will be at stake.

This report focuses on how the Buriganga and other rivers near the Dhaka city arestuck on a sticky, tangled web of corruption and are being wiped out of the map atthis very moment.

Dhaka city has literally grown on the banks of the Buriganga River. The Mughalsshaped their developments around the river because of its unique route that providesgreat potential for easy navigation and make trading easier with other parts of theland. Today, the Buriganga River is used by thousands of passengers travelling to theirhome districts and other parts of Bangladesh. To many people, this is the onlyaffordable means of travel. The river, however, is dead and stagnant. There is nowater movement in nine of the twelve months and the lifeline and once crownedriver of Dhaka is now a septic tank. Entire generations of fishermen who fished in thewaters of this very river now face an uncertain future because fishing is the only skillthey have. One cannot even wash their feet in the black water, filled with foulsmelling stench.

1 - Untreated toxic wastes are pumped into the Buriganga River

How did this happen? How can we turn a river biologically dead? - Avery popular issue and is often brought to our notice by newspaperand magazine articles. Unplanned urbanization and unmonitoredindustrialization is the answer. More than 80% of Dhaka’s untreatedsewage is fed to the Buriganga River. Domestic waste and hazardousindustrial waste are dumped directly into the river without anytreatment or filtration process. The poisonous chemicals in thewaste eat up all the oxygen in the water and make it impossible forany living organism to survive.

The largest producer of such wastes is the tanneries of Hajaribag.Throughout history, many governments have made plans to controlthe pollution and bring back life to this river. The currentgovernment has made plans for extreme measures such as movingthe whole Tannery belt to Savar and creating a CEPT (Central EffluentTreatment Plant) in that location.

Although the government received millions of dollars from climatechange funds from around the world, we see no action take place. In2003, the government initiated a Tk 175-crore project named “DhakaTannery Estate Project (DTEP)” to shift the tanneries to a special

zone in Savar. This is the year 2010 and the stench in the air and theblacks of the water haven’t really decreased.

2 - The dead river cannot support any life form

3 - Treating animal skins with poisonous chemicals

The tanneries process animal skins and use manual labor instead of automated machinery to perform extremely hazardous tasks that involves more than20,000 workers to be exposed to a variety of health conditions. Only 30 among almost 200 tanneries provide the workers with any such protective gearsand clothing for the tasks. Government officials, while inspecting such tanneries are usually treated with gifts and bribes.

4 - Tannery workers face serious health hazards working in these adverse conditions

The owners of such tanneries at Hajaribag complain that the funds allocated by the government for them to move to Savar are a fraction of the cost theyneed to re-establish the industry at that zone. Moreover, they signed a deal which states they would only move after the much anticipated CEPT is built.Corruption plays its dark ominous music again and the project that was supposed to finish by early 2010 has made no noticeable progress.

If the corruption does not stop in the government then these tanneries will never be relocated, the CEPT will never be built and new rivers adjacent toDhaka city will turn dead. The color of corruption is Black.

About this document

This document is an assignment for my photojournalism class and I have tried my best to provide correct data and statistics wherever possible.Please drop me a note if you believe some information to be incorrect.

Special Thanks to Rezwan Islam from “The Third World View” (URL - http://rezwanul.blogspot.com ) for his contributions.

References

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=122913

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=65474

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=42242

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=81469

Copyright

All text and images are available for reprint and distribution, provided that you take my permission first. I would like to know how and where my workwould be used.

Mehedi RahmanDhaka, Bangladesh.January, [email protected]