Record get-aways: Smooth as knife through butter

WITH crime and corruption incidence high, investigations derailed, arrests gone fugitive as accused with bloated chest roam free, and conviction rate the lowest of low, Bangladesh is a country of get-aways.

This is a sad outcome of systematic de-institutionalisation. Of course, the number of institutions has increased over time. Yet, we are left with little of their integrity after two and a half bouts of military or semi-military rule for 17 years and political vendetta ruining them, ironically since restoration of democracy in 1991.

But as they say, examples are better than precepts, so be it. In lands far and near, abuse of power and corruption by the high and mighty have been subjected to vigorous scrutiny of law. And, they have been convicted without mercy as they were supposed to be setting examples of public conduct from their high positions.

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, once ranked as one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, was convicted of tax fraud. Even though his age exempted him from direct imprisonment he had to serve his sentence by doing unpaid social community work. A new Italian anti-corruption law made the Italian Senate expel and bar him from serving any legislative office for six years.

Nicolas Sarkozy, a former President of France, was criminally charged with corruption in July 2014 by French prosecutors. Unseated by socialist Francois Hollande by a narrow margin of vote, he is trying to bounce back from formal political retirement.

Nearer home in India, Siddhartha Shankar Roy, former Chief Minister of West Bengal (1972-1977), created a stir by demanding unimpeachable probity from his officials. He instituted a judicial inquiry against a secretary to the government who accepted a gift of a record player worth Rs 5,000 only. He was punished.

Fast forward to 2013-14 -- the corrupt have been making it to the front pages of Indian newspapers. Madan Mitra, Minister for Transportation in West Bengal government and Trinamool MPs Srinjoy Bose and Kunal Ghosh were arrested in Saradha Chit Fund scam. They have been facing CBI investigations.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went absolutely ballistic against Modi government and in part against media alleging the latter of “turning us into thieves.”

Earlier on, Tamil Nadu's reigning Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had been jailed in disproportionate asset case. She has since been set on bail but her plea for advance hearing in the case was rejected by the Supreme Court. In spite of her sky-high popularity (154 people having died out of shock at her arrest) and her replacement O. Panneerselvam determined to keep an empty chair and old title for Jayalalithaa as the chief of the party, law didn't spare her.

This bears a testimony, loud and clear, to state institutions upholding the principle of equality before law without fear or favour. Actually, all the institutions of investigation, enforcement and judiciary worked in concert to deliver justice, perhaps in a more vigorous way because it involved a test of probity of a public leader.

Back to Chit Fund scam. This sent ripples beyond West Bengal into Odisha and Tripura and has a ring of familiarity with Multi Level Marketing (MLM) fraud in Bangladesh. Saradha Scam panned out through a consortium of over 200 private companies purportedly running collective investment schemes. The groups collected around $ 4 to $6 billion from over 1.7 million depositors before it collapsed in early 2013.

Anandabazar Patrika, in a series of reports in September 2014, inter alia, stated “Saradha Group engaged Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) to move money out of India. The JI allegedly used its brokerage from laundering operation to fuel its militant protests against the war crime trials of its founders and destabilise the Awami League government in Bangladesh.”

Whether it is MLM Destiny fraud or the Hallmark scam in state-owned Sonali Bank neither the monies have been recovered nor the major players have been held to account. The Jubok scandal has had its 3 lakh clients still unpaid for the money they had invested. For the love of God, no one knows how long it will take to bring the scams to a satisfactory closure.

Meanwhile, ACC has given clean chits to 1,600 people in 8 months, including dead, non-existent persons.

Unsurprisingly, a UNDP study found Bangladesh as a top exporter of illicit money averaging $ 800 million annually between 1970 and 2010. To cap it up you have the Washington-based research organisation Global Financial Integrity (GFI) finding that illicit capital transfer from Bangladesh tripled to $1.78 billion in 2012.

Is it a Bangladesh of looters, grabbers and plunderers we had fought for? A question that haunts us even 43 years after independence, a supreme irony that, to be sure.  With the 'younging' of Bangladesh, hopes kindle to usher in a Bangladesh of our dreams. We are approaching a knowledge baseline shift to be able to recreate a land suffused with equality of opportunities, fair play and rights-based values.

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.
E-mail: Husain.imam@thedailystar.net