MEDIA report on Friday said corruption has further increased in the country last year to show it ranked 146th position in corruption index and scored only 26 points out of 100 in TIB’s corruption perceptions Index -2020. The situation failed to improve both in terms of ranking and score from 2019. The country has been placed at 12th spot from the bottom and two notches down in this report out of a total of 180 countries.
Our performance in curbing corruption was “disappointing” the report has rightly said despite the government claim of so-called big success in achieving higher growth. It appears higher growth here largely means steady rise in corruption and laundering of public wealth. It is highly embarrassing and also frustrating that the country’s score is second lowest among eight South Asian countries and fourth lowest among 31 Asia-Pacific nations. It is a shame that Bangladesh’s position is only ahead of war-torn Afghanistan in this region.
The report has blamed erosion of political integrity and linkage of politics with abuse of power, corruption and criminality as well as dysfunctionality of the key government institutions and their lack of accountability as key factors to such dismal performance. Total impunity to big crimes by party men and detachment of policies and actions from public interest are almost openly promoting the nation’s criminality record. Pervasive conflict of interest of people holding political and government positions led them to take their power as a license for personal enrichment.
We can’t expect corruption to come down this way. Widespread corruption, especially in the health sector amid Covid-19 crisis, high profile bank loan scandals, and money laundering are destroying the financial sector. It is surprising how the Chief Executive of a financial institution has laundered several thousand crores of taka from three banks and NBFs, and was able to leave the country. Why law enforcement agencies didn’t work in time or they let the launderers to go.
TIB news is after the fact and no surprise when the government demolished all the institutions of check and balance. The government has no accountability as the people have been successfully denied election. The game is corruption and our shame is our educated people are complicit in keeping machinery for the competition of corruption going.
Our performance in curbing corruption was “disappointing” the report has rightly said despite the government claim of so-called big success in achieving higher growth. It appears higher growth here largely means steady rise in corruption and laundering of public wealth. It is highly embarrassing and also frustrating that the country’s score is second lowest among eight South Asian countries and fourth lowest among 31 Asia-Pacific nations. It is a shame that Bangladesh’s position is only ahead of war-torn Afghanistan in this region.
The report has blamed erosion of political integrity and linkage of politics with abuse of power, corruption and criminality as well as dysfunctionality of the key government institutions and their lack of accountability as key factors to such dismal performance. Total impunity to big crimes by party men and detachment of policies and actions from public interest are almost openly promoting the nation’s criminality record. Pervasive conflict of interest of people holding political and government positions led them to take their power as a license for personal enrichment.
We can’t expect corruption to come down this way. Widespread corruption, especially in the health sector amid Covid-19 crisis, high profile bank loan scandals, and money laundering are destroying the financial sector. It is surprising how the Chief Executive of a financial institution has laundered several thousand crores of taka from three banks and NBFs, and was able to leave the country. Why law enforcement agencies didn’t work in time or they let the launderers to go.
TIB news is after the fact and no surprise when the government demolished all the institutions of check and balance. The government has no accountability as the people have been successfully denied election. The game is corruption and our shame is our educated people are complicit in keeping machinery for the competition of corruption going.
