Dark shadow of corruption

THE Al-led government, people expect, will walk out like heroes in the cause of the people and never like one betrayed, not by the people but by its partners and sycophants. If the people brought them to power, as they say,  there was a groundswell of faith and it was up to the AL government to turn the that popular faith into performance.
The last five years of Al-led alliance in power saw only instances of hope abandoned and trust betrayed. Things could get better if the stalwarts in the government understood the importance of good governance, if in their speeches they had articulated exactly what they planned to do about the things that went wrong. Instead, what we got were polemics and political alliances with parties of diverse ideologies.
Politically, the balance sheet is pathetic. There seems to be no vision to complete a development project within the scheduled time frame. The only agenda that is being realised is a chance for exploiters, extortionists, corrupt officials and political masters to have a field day. The PMO must have known what was going on or what had gone wrong in the past months and could form a cell to investigate the wrongdoings and take remedial measures. Only stern action by the chief executive against the officials and associates who seemed to be openly insubordinate and corrupt could bring about the result that people desire. There was hardly any case of malfeasance and corruption that was properly probed and the guilty punished.
Some corrupt politicians in their chronic lust for power and wealth have reduced the ethics of statecraft to a squalid race for money. Because all such cases of corruption, bribery and amassing of wealth went undetected and unpunished, some stalwarts in the past Al government got emboldened to indulge in unbridled corruption. They earned a bad name for the Al government.
It was reported that a state minister's wealth increased by 107 times in just five years since 2008.  There are other high-profile MPs and ex-ministers in the list whose wealth accumulation during the last five years are now being probed by ACC. The people hope that all these investigations will not be just eyewash as we saw in the past. Sometimes, these charges are used to rein-in the opposition political parties.
Perhaps few countries are more scandal ridden than Bangladesh. Cases of impropriety somehow got leaked and charges were leveled against members of a political party after it lost power. However, in this country, reports of such scandals and scams, corruption and misuse of power and grabbing of state wealth with impunity disappear from the records and from public memory within a few days.
But some of these reports have remarkable staying power because of the importance they assume in the context of national perspective and continue to haunt the public mind long after the acts have been made public. Power plant tender scams during BNP regime, swindling of funds in Biman purchase, graft in purchase of medical equipment in BSMMUH and Heart Foundation, share market scam, Destiny and Hall-Mark swindling are some such cases.
The Task Force formed to probe all these cases had access to authentic records of malfeasance and corruption, and the culprits were identified. It is the corrupt groups' firm grip on power, and a devilish desire to perpetuate it, that has made the situation so bad. True as the Indian High Court judge observed while delivering judgment in Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bribery case in 1997: “Power intoxicates the best hearts as wine the strongest head but nobody can thrive on corruption. It is the froth on water -- an inch deep and then the mud.”
There was time when, in every walk of life, there were men and women who rose to great heights of professional excellence, yet led austere lives. Politics was a blessed vocation and the best minds were drawn to it. Mention may be made of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq, Moulana Bhasani, Comrade Moni Singh and a host of other patriotic leaders who left examples of dedication and service in the interest of the people to be followed by others.
Consider the sea-change that has taken place in the political landscape of the country in a matter of just about 40 years. Over the past three decades politics has become an industry. We not only have full-time politicians, we also have full time student leaders who are no longer young, many of them are married and have children (!) They enjoy commissions from business magnates, extortionists, contractors, drug and human traffickers and smugglers of all categories. It is because of such politicians' attitude for bending the law to suit their convenience that the country now bleeds. We don't have rule of law; we have rule by law. There are laws but the administration and keepers of the state are above the law.
Political corruption in the country has sent shockwaves across the world, causing a fast dip in donor assistance. Politicians must now understand that rhetoric can neither feed the people nor keep the nation marching towards peace, prosperity and stability.
Power and glory come from economic muscle, and that is the greatest challenge a government must strive to overcome. Unless we can imbibe the age-old credo that honesty, hard work and commitment bring rewards, the whole society will suffer.

The writer is a columnist of The Daily Star.
E-mail: aukhandk@gmail.com