THE Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) has arrested an official of the Ministry of Land (MoL) who grabbed about 16.5 decimal land of Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK) in the capital’s Gulshan. The Ministry issued three gazette notifications being influenced by Kutubuddin Ahmed, though High Court declared these steps void. The incident shows us how the power was abused for corruption by a junior-ranking officer. Here, we can refer the unbridled corruption of the ruling party men, including MP and Minister, who are virtually accountable to none and largely unchecked in misusing their power. If the incident of Kutub is the tip, then the unearthed incidents of power misusing by ruling party men is the entire iceberg. The ACC drive is laudable indeed. But without docking powerful grabbers and big loan defaulters such sporadic drive of ACC would not bring any fruit.
Using his influence, Kutub had tried to return the land to its owners from whom RAJUK earlier had acquired it. Being failed, he then faked a sale process and for this showed his father-in-law and a former BSMMU professor as buyers and one Nazmul Islam Sayeed as the person with Power of Attorney. The whole episode took place between October 1999 and August 2004. The ACC later found that neither his father-in-law nor the former professor was in possession of the land. Rather, Kutub was living in a tin-shed house built there. In 2008, a special court sentenced Kutubuddin to 13 years in jail for illegally amassing wealth worth Tk 1.44 crore and concealing information in his wealth statement submitted to the ACC. He, however, got an acquittal from the High Court.
Definitely, the land grabber-officer was not alone in issuing the gazette notifications. The ACC should make the other people involving with issue accountable. Exemplary punishment is an option that can effectively reduce such misappropriation but training of public employees on principle and morality should get priority.
Kutub is a small fry not a big fish. We don’t understand why ACC follows an easy way to show its efficiency to make happy the government high-ups. And why it is taking politically motivated decisions to harass others? Without catching known land-grabbers and bank looters, who are mostly ruling party MPs and leaders, the ACC would not able to gain any respect from the common people.
