Pay bribe, get pension

The government officials and employees have to pay on average Tk 7,660 bribe and spend additional Tk 3,720 for transport and meals each to process their pension documents, reveals a study by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB).
At least 71 percent of the pension recipients have to face such corrupt practices and undergo various forms of sufferings due to lack of transparency, delays, bribes and irregularities in the entire procedures, says the study styled "Pains of Pension: An Exploration into Corruption in Delivery of Public Pension."
TIB Research Fellow KNM Hossainul Haque presented the study at a news conference at the National Press Club yesterday.
He conducted the study on the basis of interviews with retired public employees, incumbent officials concerning pension, sample surveys, case studies and open-ending interviews in Dhaka, Chittagong, Narayanganj, Manikganj and Khulna in 2006.
"The study found massive corruption in the pension system," he said, adding pension seekers have to process eight to 16 types of documents and spend 159 days to get pension.
They have to pay bigger amounts in processing the leave admissibility certificate in short time, Hossainul said.
"In this case, the first and second class officials have to pay 50 percent bribe and third class employees 45 percent to secure the certificate in one to seven days."
Factors that influence bribe rates and days for processing pension application are the number of processing institutions, pension delivery functionaries, their locations, administrative positions of the retiring employees and social network between pensioners and pension delivery functionaries, the study reveals.
"The number of processing institutions and procedural complexities grow with every grade upward. Gazetted employees and superior non-gazetted employees had more responsibilities than their subordinates while in service. So they have greater risks of facing audit objections than their junior counterparts," it notes.
The systematic causes of corruption are numerous paperwork, multiplicity of processing offices, procedural complexity, shortfalls regarding pension laws, rules and regulations, poor record management and poor salary, the study observes.
Rent seeking and lack of cooperative attitude at the pension functionaries' side, and low level of awareness, initial delay in processing pension applications and poor personal documentation at pension seekers' end are the reasons that spawn corruption, it says.
Chairing the news conference, TIB Trustee Board Chairman Prof Muzaffer Ahmad said pension is considered as a sort of charity in Bangladesh, but it is a right of the retired employees.
"Unless we consider it a right, corruption is unlikely to end in the sector," he said, adding the government in Bangladesh pays the pension money from the taxpayers, but in the developed countries, this pension money is generated through investments.
"It's unfair that future generations will pay for the older generations," Prof Ahmad observed.
The TIB will prepare a policy document on the basis of the study and go for advocacy programmes to check corruption in pension sector, he said.
Endorsing the study, former diplomat Waliur Rahman said he retired from the diplomatic service nine years ago but has not yet received pension.
"My representative was asked by the officials concerned for more than Tk 50,000 in bribe. I simply didn't agree," he said.
He added the accounts office is the most corrupt office and majority of the audit officials who go abroad for auditing are not honest. In a mission abroad audit officials threaten with issuing audit objections if they are not provided with alcoholic drinks, he said.
TIB Treasurer M Hafizuddin Khan, former comptroller general of audit (CAG), said auditing in a mission abroad does not require more than four to five days, but auditors take more than a month to do the job.
He however said the government officials are indifferent about withdrawing pension and that the officials concerned also do not have adequate training about the pension rules and regulations that many times create troubles.
To check corruption in pension procedures, the TIB study suggests reduction in paperwork and application processing stages, making application forms available and providing all information about the procedures in website, appointing welfare officials at district and upazila levels to help pension seekers, and establishing a standard record management and taskforce on pension delivery.