Failing DoR seeks corporate entity
13 March 2010
The Department of Roads (DoR) will be corporatized if the revised Road Act is passed in the forthcoming session of the parliament in July.
The revised Road Act provides for the establishment of National Roads Corporation, which will be an autonomous agency with funding from the government.
Proposed by McKinsey, the change is aimed at improving productivity and efficiency. It is expected to help achieve the 10th plan targets on time.
“The budget outlay for road was less than 7 billion in the 9th plan which trebled in the 10th plan, but the capacity to implement remains the same,” said Sangey Tenzing, the Director General of DoR, adding that, if there was no change, DoR might not be able to fulfill its targets
“Two years of the 10th plan have passed and we are still way behind the target,” he said.
The achievement of ambitious 10,000 MW of hydro electricity by 2020 also depends on access roads to the power project sites. The responsibility falls on DoR. According to Sangey Tenzing, DoR has not been able to deliver much in construction of access roads either.
The department has lost many professionals in the last few years.
The Director General said that, since road projects were mostly donor-driven, fulfilling donor expectations on the ground was difficult. The disbursement of donor capital funds was low and slow.
In view of its difficulties, the option was to make the department a corporation with a board to monitor and manage its affairs.
Corporatization of the department would mean relieving it of bureaucratic processes which delay works like procurement. This is expected to speed up decision making and implementation.
Besides, monitoring and implementation are much quicker in a corporate func tioning. At the government level, the Director General said, it was fully aware that if nothing was done, it would be difficult to realize the 10th plan targets.
However, there has been no directive or formal communication from the government on the change as yet. “The government had instructed the department to revise the Road Act, which has been done and submitted. What will happen depends on the decisions made by the cabinet and the parliament,” said Sangey Tenzing.
The Director General said that the option was not just turning the department into a corporation but also making it an autonomous body.
Meanwhile, Speaker Jigme Tshultim is in favour of corporatizing DoR. “The government should be involved in monitoring, standardizing and in quality control. Rest, everything should be corporatized,” he said.
By Sonam Pelden
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Loading ...Zakar for Friday July 30 2010
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Will corporatisation make beleagured DoR a professional entity only time will tell but for the present, DoR seems to have been established to waste government resources only. Look at our roads. Where have the engineers gone? Perhapes we have the bumpiest road in the world.
If thing were to change after corporatisation, please do it because our road users need better roads, drainage system and parking spaces. This can only happen when the system is shaken up.
I have a reservation about corporatizing (?) every failing organizations. The status of corporation itself does little to clean up the mess. Instead, the status gives the CEOs and the employess a chance to claim corporate allownaces, bonus, etc,…..etc, what not entilements. The success of any agency depends on the people who are executing the work without wating for more power to fulfill their own dreams. So, do not wait for…………………………, Work man! Work
Whether corporation or department, I guess Bhutanese in general should grow up and mature to be responsible enough. As one comment says we might have the bumpiest road, however i would like to defer from that..we do have good roads, it’s not only the responsibility of the road maker to ensure good roads..We also have the duty to be a responsible road user.
History has proved that turning a government agency into a corporation often turns to be only costlier to the national exchequer while the services even degenerate.
Corporitisation of DoR is not therefore not the answer.
History has proved that turning a government agency into a corporation often turns to be only costlier to the national exchequer while the services even degenerate.
Corporitisation of DoR is therefore not the answer.