Editorial
National Service Programme
A good idea gone awry
THE National Service Programme is a classic example of how a very good concept can be scuttled by political interference, bad management and corrupt practices. The programme, a pilot project, which stemmed from the idea of providing youth with viable employment through training and financial support, has all but failed.
The project with an outlay of 860 crore taka, was originally going to involve 2000 individuals but had selected 56,054 participants. Needless to say, the amount is not a matter of joke and there was corruption in every step of the project, from selection to financial support. This, regrettably, is fairly representative of how public money is purloined from most public projects. Time and again personal gain has shown to be the main priority for the corrupt in our administration. Exploiting loopholes and creating political pressure have always worked for the benefit of the dishonest
We keep talking about our youth, we blame them for not having vision for the future and then we reach out and we try to give opportunities to those who need them. Yet even in reaching out to them self-interest gets in the way and we often snatch the opportunities away from them for partisan gains.
It is just not enough for the Secretary, Ministry of Youth to say that new projects under the programme were not taken due to some problems. Such a huge undertaking cannot suffer because of lack of planning. Someone should be made to answer for it.
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