Badrul Ahsan :
The government has taken a move to organise public hearing at every upazila headquarters (HQs) across the country with a view to bringing the lowest tire of the civil administration under accountability, sources said.
The move is also designed to establish transparency and to reduce scope of corruption in government offices, they added.
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has initially selected six upazilas of Dhaka, Gopalganj, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Rangpur and Cox’s Bazar districts as priority basis to conduct the hearing.
The ACC has in the meantime organized public hearing in three upazilas on a trial basis and got immense response from the people.
“We have organized such hearing in three upazilas and the response from the locals is beyond expectation,” ACC Commissioner Nasiruddin Ahmed told the New Nation Tuesday.
“People did not even hesitate to accuse government officials in their presence about corruption and harassments. We will gradually conduct similar hearing in other upazilas,” he said.
“If we can expand the activity all over the country and keep it continue, then corruption will significantly be reduced shortly,” the ACC Commissioner said.a
However, the anti-graft body took the decision following instruction from the Cabinet Division to improve the quality of service rendered by the state-owned entities by appropriately responding to the allegations made by the service receivers.
According to ACC, locals can place their allegations against the officials of a certain department during the hearing and the ACC will give the accused officials chance to defend themselves.
“The ACC will recommend for departmental action if the official concerned fail to defend themselves,” high official of ACC involved with the initiative said preferring anonymity.
“We’ll also sign an agreement with the Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB) in a few days because joint initiative is required for the prevention of corruption in public offices,” he added.
The ACC official said both written and verbal complaints would be accepted for the hearing. Online allegations will also be taken into account.
He said, under the pilot project, the offices which are more prone to graft-taking will get priority over others in public hearing.
“Allegations are there that people seeking services from the land offices mostly fall victim to corrupt practices and harassment. The public hearing will help us know the source of such irregularities,” he added.
According to a recent TIB study on Corruption in Service Sectors, nearly 59 per cent of the households, who had taken the services of the land offices, were victims of corruption and harassment.
Households became victims of corruption or harassment in receiving services on the following issues: Mutation (34.6 per cent), document registration (30.1 per cent), searching and collection of documents (29.5 per cent), paying land development tax (18.3 per cent), land survey (6.4 per cent), getting lease and settlement in khas land (1.5 per cent) and others (0.9 per cent), the survey mentioned. The World Bank has provided the ACC with the concept papers for preparing the modality for the public hearing programme.
The government has taken a move to organise public hearing at every upazila headquarters (HQs) across the country with a view to bringing the lowest tire of the civil administration under accountability, sources said.
The move is also designed to establish transparency and to reduce scope of corruption in government offices, they added.
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has initially selected six upazilas of Dhaka, Gopalganj, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Rangpur and Cox’s Bazar districts as priority basis to conduct the hearing.
The ACC has in the meantime organized public hearing in three upazilas on a trial basis and got immense response from the people.
“We have organized such hearing in three upazilas and the response from the locals is beyond expectation,” ACC Commissioner Nasiruddin Ahmed told the New Nation Tuesday.
“People did not even hesitate to accuse government officials in their presence about corruption and harassments. We will gradually conduct similar hearing in other upazilas,” he said.
“If we can expand the activity all over the country and keep it continue, then corruption will significantly be reduced shortly,” the ACC Commissioner said.a
However, the anti-graft body took the decision following instruction from the Cabinet Division to improve the quality of service rendered by the state-owned entities by appropriately responding to the allegations made by the service receivers.
According to ACC, locals can place their allegations against the officials of a certain department during the hearing and the ACC will give the accused officials chance to defend themselves.
“The ACC will recommend for departmental action if the official concerned fail to defend themselves,” high official of ACC involved with the initiative said preferring anonymity.
“We’ll also sign an agreement with the Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB) in a few days because joint initiative is required for the prevention of corruption in public offices,” he added.
The ACC official said both written and verbal complaints would be accepted for the hearing. Online allegations will also be taken into account.
He said, under the pilot project, the offices which are more prone to graft-taking will get priority over others in public hearing.
“Allegations are there that people seeking services from the land offices mostly fall victim to corrupt practices and harassment. The public hearing will help us know the source of such irregularities,” he added.
According to a recent TIB study on Corruption in Service Sectors, nearly 59 per cent of the households, who had taken the services of the land offices, were victims of corruption and harassment.
Households became victims of corruption or harassment in receiving services on the following issues: Mutation (34.6 per cent), document registration (30.1 per cent), searching and collection of documents (29.5 per cent), paying land development tax (18.3 per cent), land survey (6.4 per cent), getting lease and settlement in khas land (1.5 per cent) and others (0.9 per cent), the survey mentioned. The World Bank has provided the ACC with the concept papers for preparing the modality for the public hearing programme.
