THE Planning Secretary has made a recommendation to the Finance Minister that exemplary punishment be given to those who allegedly took bribes for appointment of auditors in the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), reported a local daily. Planning Secretary Bhuiyan Shafiqul Islam revealed this at a pre-budget meeting of Finance Minister AMA Muhith with the Economic Reporters’ Forum (ERF) at the latter’s office in the Secretariat yesterday.Bhuiyan also referred to an incident in which Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee’s men tried to bribe him for inclusion of a madrasa in the government’s monthly pay order (MPO). When he was a deputy secretary in the Education Ministry, he was in-charge of including madrasas in the MPO. Madrasa teachers would often come to him with money in “the pockets of their punjabis” to bribe him into including their institutions in the MPO, he said. During the rule of the Four-Party alliance, once some people of Delawar Hossain Sayedee’s constituency came to Bhuiyan with bribes for the job, he continued.”I rebuked them and drove them out of my room.” The next day, however, Sayedee himself came to his office and told him that the madrasa in question had to be incorporated in the MPO even if it violated the law, as the law says that only one madrasa per an area of 10000 people can get MPO, since it was his election pledge, Bhuiyan said, as per the report.At the meeting, a journalist drew the attention of the Minister to allegations that some people are taking Tk 7 to 8 lakh in bribes from those seeking jobs as auditors at the CAG. The viva-voce examination of the candidates was held last month and the list of the finally selected ones is yet to be announced. The Planning Secretary then suggested that the Finance Minister form an inter-ministerial committee to probe this. The secretary suggested that the committee should ask the job-seekers what amount of bribe they gave and to whom.It is about time that a senior government official asked the government to punish those who are most active in seeking bribes to give government jobs. These people who sell government jobs as if they were their personal property deserve the highest punishment as selling such jobs to people would result in the most incompetent, corrupt, and notorious people getting such public sector jobs-when it should be the reverse. This is most certainly why a certain segment of our public sector officers are among the most lethargic and inept in the civilized world – they think of their offices as a sinecure from which to extort the most money in the fastest time possible.Unfortunately as the report shows, even our ministers or politicians are often involved in indulging in corrupt activities forgetting election pledges. And why should not they be when politics is business of corruption and abuse of power. When the basis of the election itself is a lie, then to expect honesty in the government cannot be realistic.
