Anti-corruption council actvities: What I think

Our anti-corruption council when was first initiated was a lame duck or a paper tiger. It had a majority of partisan of the past BNP govt. So it passed more time on quarreling with each other over their jurisdiction or how to get more attention from the media. It never took any matter seriously at hand for investigation purpose let alone tryng any of the member of the sitting ministers or even a BNP partisan though there were no shortage of allegations.


After the tides were turn it is a necessary tool for the current govt to get hold of past leaders by their tail. It has an agenda to 'clean' the politics. The'good' deed of the past govt is also helping them. So for their own sake CG had to resuffle the total anti-corruption councl.


I do not know much about other two comissioners. One piece of information impressed me about our past CAS L.G. (retd) H.M.Chowdhury. According to a news, he was offered an exentension as Army chief which he denied quoting that he do not want to obscure the promotion for others for whom it is due. In Bangaldesh politics it is very rare. Almost every Chief ofArmy staff has entered politcs accept Nasim before him. Zia, Ershad, Shafiullah, Nuruddin, Mahbubur Rahman, so far I remember. He chose not to join politics. That was impressive. In the past caretaker Govt he was nominated by BNP. But he maintained his dignity and undoubtedly did a very good job. He was among the four who resigned. To be honest I did not expect this from him in the first place. His overall activity before taking oath as chief of ACC really made me his fan, but not a blind one.


Undoubtedly corruption is a huge issue in our country. I believe most citizen wants this country to prosper and want to see an end to corruption. The power given to ACC is something absolute. I read somewhere ' Absolute power corrupts absolutely'. Now the power enjoyed by ACC was never seen before. The question is r they using it properly or is it to serve any 'hidden' agenda to oust two big political parties or bring in a new system as envisioned by the current CAS?

The leaders who were caught, many of them r corrupt without even any proof. People know them by name. For some, I do not know whether it is a 'balance' game or some fowl play or they have truly done some mischief. During AL regime I heard a rumour that the then tele minister has taken 4 crore simply to delay the arrival of teletalk, the official mobile of the govt. It wiil come out now if it were true. I personnaly feel that any corrupt person should be taken to task wherever he belongs.

Setting up ACC is a great step towards culminating corrution, but it is not the only step. Corruption is at all level,starting at very low level wich includes small bribes, in schools by teachers, lawyers, doctors who not and upto very high level in govt which involves national interest. Catching one or few person will not stop it. We need to change the mentality of the whole nation. It will not come in a day/month or year. It will be a long process and need very much focused goal directed approach towards the issue. It do not involve only politicians but every citizen and every profession.


We need a movement for that . We need proper education. Education at all level. Students at school read patriotic poem. Vomit it out in the exam. I'm not sure how many do understand the spirit. I can share a personal experience with u. My younger brother as a school student was participating in a Biswa Sahitya kendro activity and he read 'La Measurable'. He stood third in the competetion. When I went home from the Medical College and learned this,I was very impressed. I asked him ' what did u learn from the lead character ?' He simply could not answer my question. I understood it is another vomitting business. With this type of understanding is it easy to eradicate corruption ? I guess not. I am a very big supporter of Biswa Sahitya Kendro. Even with that bizzare experience I think this is one way of making people patriotic which may in long run curbe corruption.

What we see today in the activity of ACC is just some show piece work (still it needs a lot of work to do on itself). Real work wll be by every conscious people at their own sphere. A very tideous job though in the current holding of the society. What we can do is that we can make suggestions. Some people may come up with a brilliant idea. we can pass it to ACC. But real work rests with each of us not ACC.