Don't blame the messenger, heed the message
The prime minister has said that the report of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) about “negative and criminal activities” by MPs was a conspiracy to bring non-elected people to power by damaging the image of elected MPs. She did not say a word about looking into it, or running her own investigation to verify the authenticity of the report in question. Her views are clear and categorical -- there is no corruption in her government and by the MPs, and any talk of it was a conspiracy to damage democracy. The Honourable Speaker also termed it a threat to democracy. The once fiery student leader and now a very powerful minister, and one who is known for her clean image, and someone that this writer holds in great esteem, Matia Chowdhury, has also termed the TIB report a conspiracy.
Here is a story that our PM, the Speaker and the agriculture minister may wish to recall. In May, 2009, The Daily Telegraph of London broke the story of a scandal about British members of parliament making false and questionable expense claims siphoning off millions of pounds of public money for personal use. This scandal involved almost all MPs and from both sides of the aisle, as it does in our case. When the story broke, the government was not focusing on the “motive” of the newspaper but on what it revealed. On May 11, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologised to the British people “on behalf of all politicians”. On the following day, May 12, opposition leader David Cameron said all MPs should apologise for the expense scandal which were “unethical and wrong” (Our opposition leader is silent on the TIB report and Moudud Ahmed shamefully said “it only applies to the Treasury Bench”).
The following year, in October 2010, The Guardian of London published a Transparency International (TI) report saying “Britain is seen as an increasingly corrupt country” because of the scandal by the MPs and it dropped from 12th rank to the 20th among countries perceived as cleanest in the world.
Neither Gordon Brown nor the present Prime Minister David Cameron saw any “conspiracy to destroy democracy” in the media's revelation or TI's report which significantly corroded public trust in UK MPs and even led to the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons. The British leaders, MPs and politicians took it, as it was meant to be, as an opportunity to clean UK's politics of corruption and corrupt elements, for which new laws ensuring ethics of MPs were passed and their overall performance brought under greater scrutiny.
Was Britain's democracy strengthened or weakened by the media revelation and the subsequent report by Transparency International and its UK chapter?
It may be said that unlike the UK, Bangladesh is a place where democracy has been thwarted many times by unconstitutional means, and therefore we need to be more careful about protecting the image of our parliament and of our elected representatives. Agreed. But doesn't the same argument put greater onus on our members of parliament to uphold the highest standards of ethics, commitment, transparency and accountability? Do they?
Let us recall some of the more sensational reports concerning our lawmakers published in most major national dailies, including this one, over the last few years:
- AL MP Nurunnabi Chowdhury Shaon of Bhola-3 constituency was sued over the killing of party leader Ibrahim Ahmed in August 2010, reportedly by the licensed pistol of the former;
- In January this year, AL lawmaker Kamal Ahmed Majumdar assaulted a female journalist while she was doing a story on Monipur High School;
- In July 2011, AL MP Abdur Rahman Bodi of Cox's Bazar assaulted a local schoolteacher when the latter protested against Bodi's move to grab part of the school land. In January 2009, he assaulted three assistant presiding officers during upazila parishad elections. In May the same year, he manhandled advocate Rakha Mitra, a rights activists of the area;
- Jatiya Party lawmaker of Rangpur-1 Hossain Makbul Shahriar, a nephew of the party chief HM Ershad, led five truckloads of stick-wielding JP activists against government employees when his demand that his nominees be given jobs at the Rangpur Medical College Hospital was not accepted;
- AL MP of Pabna-5 Golam Faruk Khandaker Prince, in September 2010, demanded of the deputy commissioner that his Chhatra League and Jubo League men be recruited in government service. Rebuffed, the ruling party men attacked the administration officials, including a female magistrate, when the recruitment examination was going on;
- On May 18 this year, AL MP of Mymensingh-10 Ghiasuddin Ahmed opened fire on a crowd to thwart demonstration against him.
In addition, there have been incidents galore in which MPs have publicly slapped officials, abused them or had them sent on punitive assignments because some of them refused to cow down. The truth is that in most cases government officials do the MPs' illegal and corrupt bidding and permit abuse of public wealth. In many cases, they become partners of the process, getting a cut for themselves.
In none of the above cases was any action taken against any of the above MPs, save perhaps some mild cautionary comments.
The real issue here is one of mindset. If the prime minister keeps on insisting that there is no corruption in any part of her government, then it is only natural that her MPs will feel safe and be encouraged to do what they have been doing. As a result, no corruption investigation will ever take place. Not only that, if our elected head of government castigates those who bring her the unpleasant side of reality as “conspirators” then the real conspirators -- and we believe that those who incited the Ramu violence and burnt down the 300 years old Buddhist temples are conspiring against Bangladesh -- will not only get away but will be further strengthened.
The prime minister, more than anyone else, must realise that there is no mechanism to oversee the conduct of our MPs. There is really no effective mechanism to audit how government funds are being used at the village and upazila levels. Nobody is monitoring the activities of our elected representatives. Many MPs have told this writer that to maintain the loyalty of the local Chhatra League, Jubo League and party activists they are forced to look the other way when corruption is being indulged in. In addition, there are the MPs' own henchmen who need to be kept happy. Otherwise, they say, they cannot maintain their grip on their constituency.
It is our belief that the government knew much earlier what the TIB report brought out. In fact, intelligence reports over most of the last year have alerted the government of the dire picture at the grassroots. Tragically, corruption is eating up the credits of some significant achievements of the government namely in agriculture, food production, education, regional connectivity, expanding export, controlling extremism and power production.
It is high time the prime minister and her government took the issue seriously. Even if the TIB message is only partially true, it is still big enough, serious enough and urgent enough to demand the immediate attention of the government, the ruling party and all those who support and wish them success.
And the start can be made by not condemning the present messenger but by sincerely heeding the message.
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