In the case of Bangladesh, corruption and misrule of the political parties and regime changes through military takeovers ostensibly to stamp out corruption have impeded the development of a democratic political system. First major blow to the development of a democratic political system came when the Awami League government failing to curb rampant corruption and arrest the ever-declining law and order situation resorted to proclamation of emergency (1974), and replacement of multi-party parliamentary democracy with a one-national party led presidential government under the Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, 1975. The one political party dictatorial system was also accompanied by hard laws banning newspapers excepting a few, and curbing civic rights. The above actions created serious frustration among the people, particularly among the educated and politically conscious citizens. According to many political analysts, all these negative developments coupled with intrigues within the ruling party led to the assassination of the President of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 15 August, 1975. Khandaker Mostaque Ahmed who entered upon the office of the President placed the country under martial law.

Although Ziaur Rahman's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led Parliament passed the Constitution (Fifth Amendment) Act, 1979 leading to the lifting of martial law on 9 April 1978, martial law came to be imposed again by Lieutenant General Hussein Muhammad Ershad on 24 March, 1982 on the allegation of corruption and misrule of the ruling BNP government. President Abdus Sattar who was elected President after the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman on 30 May, 1981 was removed. The Chief Martial Law Administrator General Ershad subsequently took over the country's Presidency from Justice AFM Ahsanuddin Chowdhury on 11 December, 1983. Ershad's Jatiya Party led Parliament passed the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act, 1986 leading to the lifting of martial law. There were allegations of widespread corruption. People lost faith in the stage-management election system. All these helped the opposition political parties to raise a forceful demand for a neutral caretaker government for holding parliament elections. The demand for a neutral caretaker government reached such a height that it took the form of mass upsurge and President Ershad had to step down in favour of the nominee of the combined opposition Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed, the Chief Justice of Bangladesh on 6 December 1990.

The three national elections held so far peacefully, fairly and impartially under the care-taker government received national and international acclamation. The first one was won by BNP, the second one by Awami League and the third one by BNP led 4-party alliance. But the losing major political party/parties have always declined to accept gracefully the results of the above three elections and brought allegations of "vote dacoity", 'Rigging" "sharp rigging" etc. Bringing allegations of corruption, misuse of power, infringement upon the rights of the opposition political parties, particularly of the main opposition party in the Parliament, curbing the civic rights of the citizens, politicisation of administration destroying the country's economy etc. against the party/parties in power have been common phenomena in Bangladesh. Not that all these allegations are baseless.

Since independence, corruption has been eating into the vitals of Bangladesh economy. From the beginning Bangladesh has been following a centralised planning mechanism for development activities. Government undertakes development projects for implementation through annual development programme (ADP) with both domestic resource and foreign assistance. During the last three decades or so many projects were included in the ADP not on national priority consideration but on political or other considerations without their going through proper identification test, feasibility study and economic analysis. There were delays and cost overrun in implementation of many of these projects. Some such projects were abandoned half-way leading to wastage of scarce national resources. The situation remains the same even today as it is evident from the observation of our Finance Minister. In the seminar on "Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Bangladesh" organised by the Governments of Bangladesh and Japan and the Asian Development Bank in Dhaka on 7 December, 2003 the Finance Minister commenting on the weakness in prioritising development projects said that populist or vote oriented projects were getting priority over schemes that were really important for the economic development of the country. He noted that roads and highways sector had the highest incidence of fund-wastage. Hardly any of the 10,000 projects in roads and highways sector and of the flood protection schemes saw full implementation.

Goods and services are required to be procured for implementation of public sector development projects, and analysts are of opinion that corruption eats up 10 to 15 per cent of the public sector procurement budget. Actually corruption takes place at various stages of implementation of public sector projects. Quality of work thus suffers for private gains. While speaking at a seminar on 'Follow-up of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit decisions concerning the SAARC Social Chapter' jointly organised by the South Asia Centre for Policy Studies and Centre for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka on 29 February, 2004, the Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs revealed that corruption was holding back economic progress and eating up no less than two percentage points of Bangladesh's GDP growth. He noted that if we could make the best use of the available resources we could achieve seven per cent GDP growth which was at present five per cent.

Corruption has a negative effect on foreign assistance and investment, particularly on foreign direct investment. Various surveys conducted to find out the impediments to foreign investment in Bangladesh have revealed almost similar reasons and these are: (i) corruption; (ii) lack of continuity in government policies; (iii) inefficient bureaucracy; (iv) unsatisfactory law and order situation including extortion; (v) frequent general strikes called by the political parties; (vi) politicisation of labour unions and their strikes; (vii) inadequate infrastructure; etc. A number of development partners including Japan have sounded a note of warning by saying that in this age of globalisation investors might shift to new destinations if their problems here were not urgently solved. Peter Bell, President of Care, USA recently visited Bangladesh and during his interview with The Daily Star he diagnosed combating corruption and crime as one of three principal challenges faced by Bangladesh. During his visit to Bangladesh in August last year, Nobel laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz observed that corruption was a major impediment to development in developing countries. We should have no doubt that Bangladesh was very much in his mind.

Public revenue of Bangladesh is earned from (i) direct taxes such as, income tax, gift tax, land development tax, registration; (ii) indirect taxes such as, customs duty, value added tax (VAT), excise duty, and supplementary duty (SD); and (iii) non-tax receipts such as surplus of sector corporations, financial institutions, railways, telegraph and telephone etc. Indirect taxes represent around 80 per cent of total taxes. Our taxes departments have a long reputation of corruption. Government is deprived of huge revenues in the collection of income tax, customs duty, VAT and other taxes due to the corrupt practices of the tax officials.

Corruption has become pervasive in public administration in Bangladesh. Hardly any public office or any section of public servants is free from this ignoble vice. Poor pay package, economic insecurity, lure of luxurious living, politicisation, shortcomings in existing laws as well as lack of their rigorous enforcement, culture of secrecy are considered as important reasons for corruption by the public servants. Corruption in Secretariat when referred to collectively, delays policy formulation and disposal of attached departments' and statutory bodies' proposals/cases which according to existing acts, rules, regulations and executive orders are required to be approved by the government. We have stated earlier how corruption in the taxes departments deprives the government of huge revenues. Corruption in some other government offices and establishments such as police department, immigration and passport department, education department, registration office, hospitals, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, etc. as well as in some statutory bodies, particularly in the utility bodies and companies such as Bangladesh Power Development Board, Rural Electrification Board, Dhaka Electric Supply Authority, Dhaka Electric Supply Company, Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, Gas Transmission and Distribution Companies, Water and Sewerage Authority causes untold sufferings to the people.

Some suggestions and recommendations made by the Services/Public Administration Reforms Commissions/Committees, analysts, sociologists and the civil society to minimise corruption are:

A strong political will to combat corruption is a must. All the political parties, particularly the major political parties in power or outside the power, must act in unison to fight this hydra-headed monster. Corruption must be kept above politics.

Like in India, election commission of Bangladesh will ask the candidates for parliament elections to disclose: (1) all their criminal records; (2) all assets and liabilities of themselves and their families; and (3) their educational qualifications. The non-disclosure of the above information would be a ground for the rejection of nomination.

As in Pakistan, the Members of the Parliament (MPs) should be brought under legal obligation to submit in a prescribed form the yearly statements of assets and liabilities of themselves and their families to the Election Commission to be published in the official gazette. If the statement submitted by any MP is found during scrutiny to contain false information he or she may be proceeded against for committing the offence of corrupt practices.

There must be a time limit for final disposal of disciplinary cases against the government servants under the Disciplinary and Appeal Rules. Punishment meted out to the corrupt officials through quick disposal of disciplinary cases will, to a great extent, act as a deterrent to corruption by other officials. Honest officials will also find some solace in it.

Pay and other benefits of civil servants must be maintained at a realistic level. Their salary should as far as possible be competitive with the private sector.

Anti-Corruption Act, 2004 for the formation of the Anti-Corruption Commission was passed by the Parliament in February last. People of the country as well as the development partners want that the Commission is made operational without further delay.

There is a Constitutional obligation (Article 77) to establish the office of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman, according to the Constitution, shall exercise such powers and perform such functions as Parliament may, by law determine, including the power to investigate any action taken by a ministry, a public officer or a statutory public authority. So the office of the Ombudsman should be established at the earliest.

M Abdul Latif Mondal is a former Secretary, Government of Bangladesh