‘Failures are mine, successes yours’

People from all walks of life -- including those from the government, political parties and civil society -- need to work together relentlessly to curb corruption, said the outgoing chairperson of Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Iqbal Mahmood yesterday. 

"It is not possible for ACC alone to drive away corruption from the country," he said, adding that corruption hinders achievement of sustainable development goals (SDG) and deprives people of services.

"The time has come to leave [the organisation]. But the question is whether I was successful in fulfilling expectations. It is not possible for me to evaluate my activities. I'm leaving it to the people to judge," he said while addressing a views-exchange meeting on ACC's Annual Report at its Segunbagicha headquarters in the capital.

Iqbal said, "I'm shouldering the burden of all failures that took place in the last five years, and giving credit of my success to my staff, officers, journalists, critics and people.""We all need to be vocal against corruption from our respective positions," he said. 

A new commission will start functioning from next month, as tenure of the current chairperson, and Commissioner AFM Aminul Haque will expire in March. Both joined ACC on March 14, 2016.

The outgoing chairperson hoped that the new commission will perform even better. "Every day, a new sunshine gives us new hope. I hope the commission will do better in the upcoming days," said Iqbal.

After joining ACC, Iqbal took steps like conducting raids at government offices upon graft allegations, and introducing "106" hotline. Statistics also show that punishment rate in graft cases also increased in the last five years.