Heed public opinion for an effective ACC

IN a Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) survey, the latest such study to assess public mood and opinion over the government's ongoing initiative to curtail power and independence of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), TIB has come out with some clear-cut findings. The central point to come out of the survey is that an overwhelming number of citizens are opposed to the cabinet-approved amendments to the existing ACC law seeking to turn it into a virtual prototype of the erstwhile anti-corruption bureau.
The very fact that it is proposed to be mandatory on the part of the ACC to seek permission of the government to file corruption or abuse of power-related cases against public servants including ministers and MPs militates against the fundamental purpose behind constituting an anti-graft body. If the ACC cannot on the basis of a schedule of offences defined in the law initiate action against public functionaries, traditionally known to be practitioners of corruption or abuse of power, how can we possibly fight the menace of graft in high places? We simply fail to appreciate the rationale for subjecting the ACC to the subservience of the executive in a very fundamental way. Is it not as good as making it into an appendage to the PMO like the now-defunct anti-corruption bureau? This is the farthest from what anti-corruption bodies in successful democracies have been like.
We, in this paper, have endorsed the view of the present ACC chief who along with his colleagues voiced their reservations over six of 23 amendments proposed to the law. Indeed, the ACC, the public in general and the media do not like to see the ACC as 'a paper tiger', to borrow the expression of the ACC chief himself.
Even the secretary to the ACC will be appointed by the government to make sure the executive holds the sway. On a more important plane, the ACC is to be accountable to the President. Of course, the body has to be accountable to a constitutional authority, a concern we believe can be adequately met if it is made answerable to parliament. This can be ensured through submission of an annual report to the parliament which then would be scrutinised by it. As for any arbitrary filing of a case against anybody a safeguard can be built into the law with a recourse to judicial remedy. Making the ACC accountable to the President means subservience to the executive inasmuch as President acts on the advice of the PM barring a few exceptions.
The image being conjured up of an ACC the government would like to see hardly approximates the electoral pledge of the AL that the party will strengthen rather than weaken the ACC in power. So, we say pay heed to public opinion on a matter that has a make- or- mar bearing on good governance as well as the image of the country we would like to see projected to the outside world.