Curbing corruption demands government’s proactive intervention

One needs to hardly repeat the ill-consequences of corruption on the country's moral, social and economic fabric. While Bangladesh no longer ranks at the bottom of the list of most corrupt countries, corruption remains widespread and pervasive. It is not a comforting thought that Bangladeshi is only above Afghanistan in South Asia in the list of most corrupt countries. The country loses around two percent of its GDP annually due to corruption. More than USD 10 billion are siphoned out of the country through corruption, and the agencies seem powerless to do anything about it.

While corruption is a pervasive phenomenon ailing all sectors, and requires the participation of all responsible citizens to be curbed, the lead role must be that of the government, since it is the government ministries and agencies that are most affected by corruption. But the comment of the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission, that government organisations and departments are "not serious enough" about curbing institutional corruption, betrays the sincerity of the administration in fighting corruption, which has assumed an endemic form. This is disheartening. It has been conclusively established through various media reports, particularly in the last one year, that without a deep nexus between government functionaries and private individuals, corruption would not be able to thrive in the country. The pandemic has exposed the deep-rooted corruption in the health sector, for example. We cannot believe that the state of affairs was unknown to people in positions of responsibility.

Regrettably, timely and appropriate measures are not put in place to detect and identify the culprits and sever the link between government officials and private individuals. Most often, those that are caught somehow manage to escape through the loopholes in the law. Many are not even held to account. May one ask as to why the authority did not blacklist 14 contractors for misappropriating more than Tk 100 crore from the coffers of various government medical colleges and hospitals, as recommended by the ACC nine months ago, but only did it when the High Court asked them to do so?

The ACC has made some timely and relevant recommendations, all of which are not new, but which the government should consider seriously. The suggestion to set up an ombudsman and place the Assistant Superintendent of Police in charge of police stations deserves immediate attention.