Digital Bangladesh, a tale of governance failures
The government-commissioned white paper on Bangladesh's much-publicised journey towards "Digital Bangladesh" has delivered a sobering verdict. What was once marketed as a transformative national project has now been revealed—through the task force led by Professor M Niaz Asadullah—to be mired in systemic governance failures, entrenched corruption, and pervasive political capture. The conclusion drawn by the task force, after reviewing 52 ICT Division projects, should worry anyone concerned with the country's development trajectory.
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The white paper documents how political influence seeped into the very architecture of the previous Awami League government's digital modernisation drive: at least 12 major projects and 65 components were named after political personalities or directly leveraged for partisan visibility. Flagship connectivity initiatives such as Info-Sarker II and III devolved, in the report's words, into "a textbook case of triple rent seeking." The Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority—tasked with fostering innovation and industrial diversification—fared no better. Instead of nurturing a technology ecosystem guided by demand and feasibility, the authority found itself redirected towards political pageantry and patronage. IT parks and training centres were launched not on the basis of market need, infrastructure readiness or the capacity to attract tenants, but on where they could deliver the most partisan mileage.
Irregularities revealed, includes: equipment priced at up to four times the global rate, cartel-like vendor networks, manipulated tenders, weakened state control over critical infrastructure, and an unhealthy reliance on private monopolies in connectivity projects. To shield themselves from scrutiny, some project authorities allegedly adopted "dual governance" models that enabled donor-affiliated consultants to influence procurement and programme design. Even education-focused initiatives such as the Sheikh Russel Digital Lab (SRDL) and School of Future were found to be non-functional. Meanwhile, the Digital Sylhet City Project has been one of the starkest examples of politicised failure. Conceived as an urban connectivity solution, it collapsed under the weight of patronage politics. Wi-Fi coverage reached less than five percent of targeted beneficiaries, and no agency accepted responsibility for its operations. These failures represent more than just wasted public funds—they constitute a profound lost opportunity for young Bangladeshis as the world accelerates into an era defined by digital capability. Reviewing one of the most celebrated projects of the previous regime is a necessary step towards understanding how the absence of democratic accountability erodes public institutions and drains scarce national resources. It shows that patron-client politics does not simply distort priorities; it often cripples entire governance mechanisms. The interim government must take the task force's recommendations seriously. And political leaders—whether in office or aspiring to be—would do well to absorb the lesson at the heart of this white paper: without transparency, oversight, and genuine accountability, no grand vision, however dazzling in rhetoric, can deliver the transformation it promises.
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