CORRUPTION is not decreasing in Bangladesh; rather it is being institutionalised in many sectors. If corruption cannot be contained or reduced to a tolerable level, good governance cannot be assured and rule of law also be established and the on-going flow of economic growth would not be sustained. These were the observations of the speakers in a dialogue on ‘Sustainable Development Goals — 16: Peace and Security, human rights and good governance’ at BRAC Center, Dhaka on Thursday. According to media reports the speakers said, ‘Everyone is telling that we have to apply our total strength to establish corruption-free country; otherwise many good initiatives of us will fail. But there is no indication that we are marching to that direction’.SDG was adopted at UN General Assembly session on 2015. Member countries promised in it to achive 17 goals within 2030. Goal number 16 within it is about peace and security, human rights and good governance. In Bangladesh there is no sign of improvement in this point. In freedom of speech and accountability index, the position of Bangladesh among 100 nations was 58th in 2000. It came down to 68th in 2014. In the field of political stability and absence of violence, Bangladesh was 78th in 2000 and came down to 82nd in 2014. In the case of anti-corruption drive, Bangladesh is behind all the South-Asian countries except Afghanistan. Illogical rise of project expenditure is a crude example of large institutional corruption. Another area is absence of accountability while giving allotments of funds, mostly in the kinds, for the MPs’ in social security programme. This sort of institutionalisation of corruption is a matter of deep concern. It weakens the overall institutional ability or their usefulness to deliver public services. In this background, it is a must to help the mass people feel that the rule of law has been established. But the situation now prevailing in the country is quite opposite to those idealistic talks seen in the books.SDG is a dream proposed globally. But it is true that there are some practical problems to achieve these goals. These are lack of consciousness, lack of ability and lack of good intention. First two problems can be solved with determination and hard work. But it is very difficult to overcome the third one. In the absence of a good governance, the public institutions have indulged in mass-corruption on a wide scale on daily basis. To put it more simply, corruption is now an institutional phenomena and practised openly without any fear or shame.Surprisingly, the government, more so the anti-corruption watchdog body – the Anti-Corruption Commission – has no concern about such shameful state of affairs because influentials walking in the power corridors are mostly involved in the wide-scale race of corruption. The nation is just helpless now.
