Economy to record higher growth if corruption reduced

The economy will record higher levels of growth if the state can reduce corruption by strengthening different government institutions and ensuring their accountability and transparency, said a Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Task Force report on Governance.

It said corruption has been identified as an obstacle to economic development, and the impact of the practice greatly outweighs other factors, such as political instability, lack of infrastructure, regulatory uncertainty, and inflation.

The report also said it is important to have an independent and efficient anti-corruption agency to curb corruption. Unfortunately, the agenda of the Bureau of Anti-Corruption (BAC) in Bangladesh is seriously compromised by a number of factors, including institutional weakness, irregularities and absence of political will.

Following are the recommendations of the report:

The BAC should be given the opportunity to work independently. To be effective, BAC must be independent. To this effect, the Director General should be given authority to institute investigation and criminal proceedings independently. In addition, the DG should be given full authority to carry out inquiry and lodge FIR.

An autonomous standing committee should be formed with judges, senior public officials and leading citizens to oversee the activities of the BAC as well as authorise investigations into ministries, corporations and other agencies by a statutorily appointed and protected public prosecutor.

Trials of the accused in the cases filed by BAC are held in the court of special judges who are actually District and Sessions Judges. The Judges remain overburden with cases other than those of BAC. Similar is the case with the prosecution, since BAC has no Public Prosecutors (PPs) of its own. The bureau has to depend on government PPs working in courts of the District and Sessions Judges who are not always available for the purpose of BAC's cases.

The provision of seeking permission of the Prime Minister before instituting cases in courts against mid-level officials should be dropped immediately. Since initiation of anti-corruption cases against government servants from mid to the highest level and against political office holder needs prior permission of the Prime Minister, there is no instance of corruption case being filed against a political office holder belonging to or supporting the party in power. For its effectiveness, the BAC should have full and unfettered powers to decide the course of action on the basis of its findings upon the conclusion of an investigation against a public servant and politician of any rank and status. Further, the standard of investigating officials and their work method should be improved.

Recruitment standard for BAC should be made higher. Higher-ranking officials should be recruited. Currently, inspectors, who are generally promoted to the rank from that of constables, are the investigation officers of BAC. They are unskilled. This lead to a system of working that is not satisfactory.

A mechanism should be put in place to enable BAC to make use of the power it has through acts, rules and regulations, which are quite in adequate for BAC to discharge its functions.