An inspiring example of honesty

It is heartening to know that a retired constable has settled his "debt" of unbought tickets for train journeys he had made while working for the Anti-Corruption Commission. Reportedly, the 61-year-old Emdadul Haque, a resident of South Mourail in Brahmanbaria who retired from service in December, visited the Brahmanbaria Railway Station on Monday, and expressed his desire to pay his dues. His wasn't a case of late-blooming conscience. He kept a tally of the number of times he had to travel without a ticket over the last few years and, upon meeting railway officials, paid a duly-counted Tk 2,530.

While we hope non-paying train passengers will learn from Emdadul's example of honesty, we also expect that the higher authorities will ensure total compliance with all rules and regulations, especially by railway officials who must lead by example in all their undertakings.

In so doing, the father-of-four has set an example of honesty at a time when such efforts, particularly by government officials, current or former, are few and far between. Stories like this inspire us, teach us the importance of honesty and integrity, and make us want to be a better version of ourselves in both personal and professional lives. They show us how citizens can, and should, evolve from being mere customers into active stakeholders in matters related to them. By coming clean on his travel history, Emdadul has also shone a light on the travel habits of many train passengers as well as the mismanagement and irregularities currently plaguing the sector.

Train passengers travelling without tickets is a common phenomenon in the country. We often come across reports of people doing this, sometimes without so much as a thought spared for the impropriety of the act or its likely effect on a struggling sector. Our memory of a travelling ticket examiner of Bangladesh Railway, who was temporarily suspended after he fined three relatives of the railways minister travelling without tickets, is still fresh. As well as high-profile offenders, there are also university students and even ordinary citizens trying to take advantage of a system where there is little accountability for crimes and failures.

Railway officials themselves are perhaps the biggest beneficiary of this corruption-enabling, inefficiency-tolerating system, which makes Emdadul's story both an example to follow and a case study to scrutinise. The railway is a serial offender when it comes to questions over poor services, lax monitoring, lack of implementation of relevant rules and regulations, and poor execution of its many projects. Although the authorities routinely talk about improving and modernising railway services, the truth is, the huge investment made in this sector has amounted to little improvement over the years.

So while we hope non-paying train passengers will learn from Emdadul's example of honesty, we also expect that the higher authorities will ensure total compliance with all rules and regulations, especially by railway officials who must lead by example in all their undertakings.