In the area of corruption with public money or outright plundering what is true is that hiding of any such public crime from public eye has become so easy as never before. There is a share for everybody in the looting directly or indirectly. Even the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is not serious about high profile gang robbery of public money. The very purpose of the high-powered Commission was to create fear in the minds of those in high positions in public life that they cannot get away with their big corruption. The ACC is there to catch them and punish them. But its public image is that it exists more for abusing its power to make weak people its helpless victims. In respect of the biggest bank robbery the people in other countries are active, but nobody knows of any activity on the part of the Commission. The idea which is working is people’s money is others money, we are not to bother.The Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) – a leading think-tank on the national economy has at last echoed the people’s demand when it suggested on Sunday that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Finance should open public hearing on Bangladesh Bank’s money heist to unearth the local and international conspiracy behind it. CPD fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattachariya made the point at a press conference in the city raising the question when the Philippines Senate is holding hearing to identify the culprits and recover the money why Bangladesh Parliament is not holding discussion on it. “Where is our Parliamentary Standing Committee, why didn’t the Committee convene a meeting?”But the situation we have created in the country in which the government does not feel any accountability to the people. The question has been rightly raised but whether the right answer will come, we have to see. The indication should have been clear when the Governor of Bangladesh Bank gave up the position safely and like a hero.Debapriya’s view that stealing US$ 101 million is not only the big loss, what is more important is the risks to the safety and stability of the financial sector over the size of the money lost. The heist has exposed how technology-based risks Bangladesh is facing as banks and financial institutions are fast switching to technology-based maintenance of reserves and transactions. We must have best technology and also the capacity to save our reserves. State-owned banks in Bangladesh lost huge money in recent years to swindlers and it also clear that political influence facilitated the stealing. The matter has been hushed up so that full truth remains unknown.In absence of public hearing like that taking place in the Philippines many here also doubt that the real truth will never come to see the light; because some powerful quarters reportedly tried to keep the heist secret from the beginning. It only became public in Bangladesh after at least one month of its happening and when the Philippines media made the great robbery global headlines. The latest CID report speaks about involvement of 20 foreigners in the case but who were their local accomplices in Bangladesh, the CID must also identify and carry out their arrest. Media reports said two CID teams returned home after visiting Philippines and Sri Lanka. We don’t know what is the outcome of their foreign trip.Some highly positioned persons in public have every reason to believe that there is nobody to catch them, nobody to punish them.
