One of the best possible ways of combating corruption in a country known to have earned the infamy of high prevalence of graft is to ensure adequate punishment to the corrupt elements through due legal process. And it is the responsibility of the state to ensure punishment to corrupt elements, which would discourage others from indulging in similar offences. Every country, be it a developed or developing one, has its own mechanism or institution to deal with the issues of graft. Bangladesh has one, named, Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) which was constituted in the early part of 2000 after a lot of foot dragging, replacing a highly ineffective entity -- the Bureau of Anti-corruption.
Under Bangladesh conditions not many people had reposed much faith in the efficacy of the new graft body. It did not take too long a time to prove them right. People started calling the Commission a 'toothless tiger' for its failure to do to anything against public officials who were taking bribes or stealing public funds by abusing power and influence. In fact, the ACC became a target of public ridicule, particularly when its helmsmen vented their frustration in public about their failure to take actions against corrupt elements in line with the desire of the people. Such a frustration reached its peak following unearthing of the Padma Bridge bribe conspiracy, the Hall-Mark scam and the recovery of a large amount of money from the car of a railway official.
The ACC have allegedly failed to prove its competence both in booking the high profile corrupt elements and proving the allegations in the court of law against whom it has brought graft charges. Without a strong political commitment, pressing graft charges against influential and powerful people in this country is highly unlikely. And common people are aware of this fact. But the high rate of failure -- over 70 per cent -- in proving allegations in the corruption cases filed by the ACC appears to be very unusual. This has also irked the incumbent law minister, who is himself a noted lawyer. While speaking at a training programme arranged for skill development of the ACC officials early this week in Dhaka, the law minister said 'incompetence and lack of fairness' on the part of ACC investigators were responsible for a very low rate of success in graft cases.
The ACC chairman, who also spoke at the function, admitted the deficiencies on the part of the ACC officials in matters of probing into various graft cases. It is not that difficult to remove such deficiencies if the ACC high-ups are really interested to accomplish this important task. What they will require to do is to replace the inefficient officials with the efficient and honest ones. More importantly, the key functionaries of the ACC should stop listening to the people at the power centre and try to do their job diligently without any bias. And the government of the day should also prove to the people that it does mean business this time as far as the job of combating graft is concerned.
Why ACC is failing to prove graft charges?
FE Team | Published: April 09, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
Share if you like