The attempted bribing scandal by an ex top brass, appearing in The daily Star on November 25, 2010, under the heading "Shock offered to media" reminded me of an incident several years ago at a personal level.
A friend of mine, residing in San Diego, California for about 3 decades, lost his mother and came to Dhaka to pay his last respect to her. As he happened to be the only child of his parents, he became the sole inheritor of whatever his late mother left behind.
In order to claim his inheritance, he needed a death certificate and a succession certificate from the authorities concerned. I told him to get the death certificate from the city corporation at Nagar Bhaban and the succession certificate from the court. As he went to Nagar Bhaban to collect the death certificate, he was told to pay (bribe) for the job. He got frustrated; I told him that it was not USA, and that he had to go by the rules of the land. Subsequently, he yielded to their demand and got the job done.
The situation has become such that in order to get a job done from a government office, the first thing that ever comes to people's mind is, how much it would “cost” to get the job done.
Almost 40 years into independence, nothing has changed for the better, rather everything has gotten worse. No wonder Bangladesh tops the list of the most corrupt nations in the world.