A World Bank report on corruption in Bangladesh noted in 2000: Corruption has been a constant of human history. It rotted Roman Catholicism in Europe 500 years ago, fuelling the rise of Protestantism. It fed the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty and of Russia’s army in World War 1, helping to trigger violent revolutions in both the countries. It so tarred the administrations of two American Presidents (Grant and Harding) 60 years apart that they are largely known for the scandals of their stewardship. Afflicting wealthy societies and poor ones, corruption has become an obstacle to development and prosperity in many modern developing nations. Bangladesh is one of them.
A South Asian nation, Bangladesh is considered one of the least developed countries of the world. Black money has been dominating the economies of South Asia for a long time. The principal sources of black money are drug trafficking, smuggling and corruption. It has been found that higher levels of corruption are often associated with larger unofficial or informal economies (Johnson et al., 1998). A recent study estimated the size of unofficial economy in Bangladesh to be around 50 per cent of GDP and increasing during the 1990s (IMF, 1998). On the other hand, according to Schneider and Buehn, the informal or underground shadow economy in Bangladesh averaged 35.5 per cent of GDP between 1999 and 2006 (Schneider & Buehn, 2009).
Today, corruption has struck its roots deep inside Bangladesh society. The general masses routinely fall prey to corruption in different shapes and forms. It not only hampers economic growth, local and foreign investments are also discouraged in the process. The availability of resources decreases, poverty rises and efforts for human development are jeopardized as a result (TIB, 2000). If Bangladesh could reduce its corruption levels to those of the least-corrupt countries of the world, then it could add between 2.1% to 2.9% to its per-capita annual GDP growth rate (World Bank, 2000).
Starting from 2001, the Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International had ranked Bangladesh as the most corrupt country in the world for consecutive five years up to 2005 (TIB, 2005). And, according to the estimates of Bangladesh Economic Association, black money generated in the country during 2004 was approximately Tk 700 billion (Ahsan, 2005) while bribes paid in 11 major sectors during the year amounted to almost Tk 160 billion.
Corruption in Bangladesh emanates from both politics and administration. In most of the cases, it takes place in the form of bribery. Besides, misuse of power, nepotism, fraud, embezzlement and patron-client relationships also give rise to corruption. If the political process becomes corrupt, then, naturally, administrative corruption also increases. Development efforts are today seriously hampered in Bangladesh due to the spiralling rise of corruption in all corners of bureaucracy and politics (TIB, 2000). The existence and legality of the state is threatened in the process.
Corruption has gradually evolved over time throughout the world and the incidence of corruption is thought to have increased with the gradual growth of civilization. There was no scope for corruption in primitive societies due to the simplicity of their lifestyle. The Greek and Roman civilizations were known to be afflicted with this malaise in different degrees. Corruption was then political in nature. Some information on corruption in the Indian subcontinent during ancient times could also be gathered. In the famous treatise ‘Artha-shastra’, written by Kautilya more than two millenniums ago, mention has been made of forty techniques for siphoning off money by government employees. Some other evidences also suggest existence of corruption in the administration, judiciary and commerce of ancient India.
Kautilya, the chief minister to the king of ancient India, provides vivid description of corruption in India and laments its existence as early as in the 4th century B.C. His book ‘Artha-shastra’ reads (Ahmed, 2002): “[The King] shall protect trade routes from harassment by courtiers, state officials, thieves and frontier guards - - - (and) frontier officers shall make good what is lost - - - just as it is impossible not to taste honey or poison that one may find at the tip of one’s tongue, so it is impossible for one dealing with government funds not to taste, at least a little bit, of the king’s wealth.”
During the Hindu and Buddhist eras (up to 12th century A.D) and then throughout six hundred years of Muslim rule, no large-scale corruption was observed in Bengal. History, however, records that the Mughal Governors and administrators of Dhaka indulged in corrupt practices and legendary Governor Shaista Khan’s daily income was an amazing 2 lac (200,000) rupees (Mamoon, 2000). But corruption proliferated in the subcontinent on a wider scale mainly during the rule of the British East India Company followed by the British colonial rule. In order to make money by any means, the company at first established itself as a commercial power, and then as a political master. Although employees belonging to the higher echelons of administration did not indulge in corruption as their salary was quite high, widespread corruption was then observed among lower-level employees.
After the emergence of Pakistan, many wealthy businessmen from the Hindu community left East Bengal for India. A newly formed business and industrial class of Pakistan soon replaced them. Becoming rich overnight, these businessmen attempted to make quick profits on a massive scale. They therefore developed close liaison with the bureaucracy. As a consequence, corruption rapidly spread within the administrative structures of Pakistan; and following the imposition of Martial Law in 1958, corruption increased manifold after an initial period of restraint.
It did not, however, remain confined within bureaucracy alone; politics also became corrupt and criminalised. The Basic Democracy Program introduced during the 1960s with the objective of strengthening local governments instead gave impetus to the spread of corruption (World Bank, 2000). A 1968 sample survey (Sobhan, 1968) designed to evaluate the impact of the public-works programme in rural areas found that 64 per cent of the respondents believed that the Union Council Chairmen were misappropriating funds; 53 per cent felt that the Circle Officers were also corrupt and 68 per cent accused the Chairmen of collusion and nepotism in exercising powers.
Since the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971, administrative corruption has consistently proliferated over the years. However, the martial-law regime of General HM Ershad (1982-90) is often blamed for institutionalising corruption in the country’s administration. It was during Ershad’s rule that administrative corruption had been extended up to the grassroots level and corruption in general had reached a mature and all-engulfing stage from that of an adolescent level (Chowdhury, 2004). It has been found from various studies that General Ershad’s time was a golden era for administrative corruption in Bangladesh. Corruption had not attained such a height at any other time and it was rampant in all areas of society and economy (Chowdhury and Majumdar, 2002). Today, corruption is pervasive in all sectors of the country, including politics, economy, administration, education and healthcare. The values of justice and fair-play appear to have gradually shrunk due to an apparently rising tide of corruption in society. Forgetting the need for achieving professional excellence, professionals working in various areas appear to be engaged in a fierce rat-race for accumulating wealth and unearned incomes by any means. This preponderance of rent-seeking activities has given rise to a corporate culture of corruption throughout the country.
As has been mentioned earlier, Bangladesh was ranked most corrupt country in the world from 2001 to 2005 by the Berlin-based anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International. It is ironic that successive democratic governments since 1991 have failed to rein in this social malady afflicting the country’s polity and administration. The hope generated by the caretaker government of 2007-08 based on their rigid stance against corruption, massive anti-corruption drive and mass arrests of corruption suspects also turned out to be a short-lived one due to various institutional, legal and political constraints. This disappointing trend has continued even after a democratic government assumed office in 2009, and there are indications that the situation has deteriorated further especially since the controversial and one-sided parliamentary election held in January 2014, which reinstated the incumbent Awami League regime back in to power.
As noted before, corruption is a universal phenomenon which existed in one form or other for time immemorial. A review of penal codes used in ancient civilisations clearly indicate that bribery was a serious problem among the Jews, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Greeks, the Romans as well as the Aztecs of the New World (Thakur, 1979). Large-scale corruption dominated public life in ancient India as well.
The World Bank has defined corruption as the abuse of public office for private gain through bribery, extortion, patronage, nepotism and the theft of state assets (World Bank, 2000). The private gains include both the benefits that flow to public officials and those obtained by private individuals and firms. It is widely identified as a governance problem. It is a signal that something has gone wrong in the management of the state, since the institutions designed to govern the interrelationships between the citizens and the state are used instead for personal enrichment and gains (Rose-Ackerman, 1999).
Highly negative impact of corruption on the socio-economy of Bangladesh is now widely acknowledged. The costs of corruption were once hard to pinpoint, but the body of empirical research that objectively examined the effects of corruption on development has grown significantly in recent years. Several cross-country empirical studies have confirmed the negative impact of corruption on investment, growth and productivity, and hence on poverty reduction (World Bank, 2000).
Two global trends have pushed the corruption agenda to the centre-stage of national and international attention. The spread of democracy as a political ideology and principle has boosted the confidence of citizens to demand transparency and accountability from state officials. The existence of widespread poverty throughout the developing world and the resultant search for institutional explanations and contributing factors has also spotlighted corruption (World Bank, 2000).
According to the World Bank, most citizens of Bangladesh believe there is corruption at almost all levels of government. It taints every section of society and stretches right across the political spectrum. This environment of graft and venality undermines public confidence in government, engenders wrong economic choices and constrains its (government’s) ability to implement policies, makes the poor pay the price, and threatens its strategy of private-sector-oriented growth. Even more ominously, social condemnation of corruption appears to have waned. Public cynicism has reached a state where an official who shuns illegal money making is likely to be regarded with mild contempt ? as lacking in courage and initiative. In short, there is a widespread sense of resignation, coupled with a belief that attempts to fight corruption are doomed to fail (World Bank, 1996).
The Bangladesh chapter of Transparency International (TIB) found in a national baseline survey in 1996 that corruption had become a huge systemic problem in Bangladesh that could not be avoided by any member of society. It practically affected all sectors of service delivery including the police, the judiciary,
healthcare, education, land administration, tax collection, mass media, municipal services, public transport and telephone services (TIB, 1997). According to this survey, most people perceived corruption as relevant to public offices and identified it with ‘misuse of power and position’, ‘negligence of duty’, ‘activity outside normal procedure’, and ‘taking money for personal gain’. The causes of corruption were found to be ‘desire to get rich overnight’, ‘moral degeneration’, ‘lack of accountability’ and ‘inadequate salary’.
According to the National Household Survey 2007 on Corruption in Bangladesh conducted by TIB, the Police, Local Government, Land Administration, Judiciary, Health and Education departments were identified by service-recipients as the most corrupt among the government agencies engaged in the delivery of services in various tiers of governance (TIB, 2008).
The table 1.1 shows the incidence of corruption in different service sectors during the rule of the caretaker government in 2007. Despite the much-publicised crackdown on corruption by the then regime, overall incidence of corruption during the period was still very high at 66.7 per cent.
The situation appears to have deteriorated in subsequent years (2012 and 2015) as shown by the Table 1.2.
References to Corruption in Bangladeshi Law: Article 20 (2) of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh clearly stipulates, “The State shall endeavour to create conditions in which, as a general principle, persons shall not be able to enjoy unearned incomes, and in which human labour in every form, intellectual and physical, shall become a fuller expression of creative endeavour and of the human personality.”
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Act 2004 provides a consolidated framework to prevent corruption and other corrupt practices in the country, conduct investigation and file cases for specific offences and deal with other relevant matters relating to corruption. The Prevention of Corruption Act, popularly known as Anti-Corruption Act of 1947, defined corruption in terms of misconduct. Corruption, as implied in this Act, involved any of the following: (i) dishonest or fraudulent misappropriation or otherwise converting for his own use any property entrusted to him or under his control as a public servant or allowing any other person to do so; (ii) obtaining valuable things or pecuniary advantage by corrupt or illegal means or by otherwise abusing his position as public servant; (iii) amassing wealth beyond known source of income.
In this Act, bribery has been shown as something distinct from corruption. Bribery is also discussed separately in Bangladesh Penal Code, whereas corruption is not. According to Section 161 of the Penal Code, bribery is gratification other than remuneration for doing or forbearing to do or for showing or forbearing to show favour or disfavour to any person.
Dr. Helal Uddin Ahmed is a former editor of Bangladesh Quarterly,
currently a freelance writer cum
translator. [email protected]
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