Department of Public Administration

University of Dhaka
Assignment on

Article Review of
“Inter-Organizational Coordination and Corruption in Urban Policy Implementation in
Bangladesh: A Case of Rajshahi City Corporation”
Course: PA-213: Urban Development & Governance

Submitted To
Dr. Momtaz Jahan
Professor
Department of Public Administration
University of Dhaka

Submitted By
Md. Sakib Hasan
Roll: 042-052
2nd Year, 3rd Semester
Department of Public Administration
University of Dhaka

Date of Submission: 11th April, 2019

Article Review
Title of the Article Inter-Organizational Coordination and Corruption in
Urban Policy
Implementation in Bangladesh: A Case of Rajshahi City
Corporation
Authors Istiaqh Jamil and Pranab Kumar Panday

Name of the Journal International Journal of Public Administration

Issue 5

Volume 35

Page Number 352-366

Year Published 2012

Inter-Organizational coordination is essential for public service delivery in Bangladesh. Inter

organizational coordination involves different actors such as government institutions,
regulatory bodies, trade unions and private organizations. It is the main theme of “good
governance”. Coordination can be two types horizontal and vertical. The article is about to
study the state of inter-organizational coordination and corruption in Rajshahi City
Corporation. The article is written by Istiaqh Jamil and Pranab Kumar Panday. It reflects the
problems between the RCC and other government departments. This problems occurs due to
lack of formal coordination, authoritarian leadership, patron-client relationship and nepotism.
For this reason corruption happens and makes the city corporation inefficient. The citizens of
the city corporation suffers as a result of it. The article is about the coordination context of
RCC, theoretical ideal, the actual practice, analysis and findings.

The Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC), which is the third largest of Bangladesh’s nine city
corporations, started out as Rajshahi Pourashava on April 1, 1876. It was then upgraded into
Pouro Corporation on August 13, 1987. Less than a month later, on September 11, 1987, it
became a city corporation. The city corporation coordinates with RDA, R&HD and LGED.

To conduct research in this study 16 people of RCC were interviewed including mayor, the
chief executive engineer, the chief medical officer, the budget and accounts officer, the public
relations officer and ten ward commissioners. From RDA, the chairman, the executive
engineer and town planner were interviewed. From R&HD the executive engineer and deputy
divisional engineer were interviewed. From LGED the executive engineer and assistant
executive engineer were interviewed. In addition, 90 people (3 from each 30 wards) were
interviewed.

In this article the authors discussed about horizontal coordination in urban governance. There
are four mechanisms of inter-organizational coordination. They are formal rules, market
based coordination, network based coordination and leadership based coordination.
In Bangladesh the coordination between different governments institutions are affected by
bureaucratic dominance, general-specialists conflict, fragmented civil service structure,
tension between professionalism and political patronage etc. So lack of coordination and
communication leads to corruption.

Corruption occurs when rules are broken ignored or bypassed to gain undue favor and
privileges. Corruption at local urban level can appear in many forms. Public office becomes
an instrument for cultivating personal aims and favors.

From the article we can see the problems in coordination in RCC. In RCC there are no formal
rules and regulation for formal coordination. The government officials communicate with
RCC officials arbitrarily.

There is presence of dual administration in RCC. So conflict rises between elected officials
and government officials.

In RCC market mechanism are violated and tenders are assigned to the influential people. As
a politically elected body the official of RCC feels superior to other government
organizations. They ignores the other government agencies.

The RCC is elected body so they are accountable to general public. On the other hand the
government officials are accountable to line ministries. So different accountability between
RCC and government officials causes problems in coordination.

The article has analyzed the causes of dysfunctional inter-organizational coordination in

RCC. Three factors are identified. They are lack of institutional and formal coordination
mechanisms, fragmented organizational culture and powerful leadership with narrow
personal and party interest. These three factors have led to widespread corruption. The policy
implementation process in RCC turn into threats, persuasion, lobbying, reward and sanctions
mechanisms.

In this article the authors both used qualitative and quantitative method. They used a
descriptive and exploratory case study approach. They don’t have any control over the events
they studied. There focus was on the contemporary phenomena. In this article the authors
only discussed the problems faced while inter-organizational coordination. They had not
discussed any remedy. The study was carried in 2005. So we can say that the scenario of
RCC might be changed at present. In this article the authors focus on horizontal coordination,
not vertical coordination. So there is need to see the status of vertical coordination in RCC.

From the article we can see that urban government bodies have failed to perform to its
standard. The client service is very poor. There is wide spread of corruption in RCC. The
authors have presented the true nature of urban government bodies in Bangladesh. They have
found out the factors that influences the urban policy implementation. Further, the form of
coordination that works best in Bangladesh’s urban governance involves informal networks
that are based on personal relationship, old school ties, familial and regional contacts, and
party loyalism.