Moeen pitches for right to information

Army chief General Moeen U Ahmed Wednesday hoped the interim government would soon introduce a Right to Information Act to stop bureaucrats getting away with corruption and ensure transparency and accountability in government functioning. “I hope that in near future the caretaker government will introduce a Right to Information Act so that corrupt officials cannot hide behind the cloak of secrecy and escape punishment,” General Moeen said. He made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the workshop co-organised by the Global Organisation of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC) and the US-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) at Radisson Water Garden Hotel. Gone are those days of secrecy when information on top brasses used to be hushed up or blanketed as ‘secret’ or ‘not to be shared’. “Now you can see even vehicles through Google Earth,” the army chief said at a question-answer session following his formal deliberation. He criticised the BNP-Jamaat government and said had the government taken measures against corruption in the education sector, corruption would have been remarkably low by now. “There are some ghost schools and ghost teachers. I am sure the government knew about it, but no actions were taken.” “The present government is looking into it in detail to make people accountable. At the moment, one of the tasks of our forces that I’ve given is that ‘please go and look after the education system’,” he said