DHAKA: Bangladesh’s Finance and Planning Minister M. Saifur Rahman, who blasted the Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International a few months ago for branding Bangladesh the most corrupt country for the fourth consecutive year, admitted in parliament on Tuesday that corruption has gripped every ministry of the government.
“There is no angel in any ministry — corruption, more or less, is everywhere,” the Finance minister said, while replying to a question from an opposition lawmaker from Jatiya party. “I can name the ministries one by one, from education ministry to communications, where corruption pervades.”
The minister even admitted, obliquely though, that the ministry that he heads is also not free from corruption. “If I initiate actions against the corrupt (tax) officials, the entire revenue division will be empty. I can’t do this as I have to run the office.”
Saifur Rahman reacted to the TI report so sharply in November last year that he took the trouble to lodge an official complain against its Bangladesh chapter with organization’s headquarters in Berlin, questioning its methodology for corruption-perception index.
However, the TI report released in September 2003 said that the persons, including officers and staff, involved in the direct and indirect taxation sector, top the list of financial corruption. The police department came next, lagging slightly behind the taxation department. But the TI report released in August 2004 showed that the police topped the list of corruption, without any ambiguity.
Meanwhile, in an apparent bid to combat corruption, the government of Khaleda Zia set up an anti-corruption commission last year and tabled a bill in parliament last week to create an office of tax ombudsman to take care, along with many other things, the corruption of taxmen.
What is surprising, however, is there is hardly any government attempt to contain corruption of police officials. The policemen’s overt involvement in various kinds of crimes like extortions hit headlines of Dhaka newspapers in past few weeks.
A traffic police constable, Zulfiqar Ali, was arrested in the capital city on June 28 for his alleged involvement in looting of over Tk 1.3 million from a money exchange agent. In the northern district of Meherpur, villagers caught 11 policemen and a member of the village defence party when they committed a robbery at a businessman’s house in Gangni upazila on June 16.
Two traffic police sergeants — Asaduzzaman Asad and Monirul Islam — were taken into the custody on Feb 9, after they made allegation that the criminals had confined them in a house. But the police later found that the two were involved in criminal activities.
A police sub-inspector and a terminated member of the Rapid Action Battalion were arrested for committing a robbery in the city in May.
Lawyers caught another traffic police sergeant, Mahfuz, when he and his brother tried to abduct a businessman from the High Court premises on April 3. He was detained in the jail. Besides, three policemen were arrested as they reportedly tried to commit a robbery at a house in the city on April 11. Meanwhile, there are reports that file proposing the setting up of a Counter Intelligence Unit to contain crime and irregularities by police personnel has been gathering dust in the ministry of home affairs since mid-2003, thanks to strong lobbying by a group of top police officials and a section of ruling BNP leaders.
