Govt not sincere in curbing graft

Apart from investigating corruption allegations against individuals, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) carries out enquiries into different government organisations and institutions to find out scopes of graft and make recommendations for the respective authorities accordingly to prevent these at source.  

For instance, the practice of extending project deadlines at WASA, disregarding government orders on tax exemption for imported goods by the officials of National Board of Revenue (NBR) or unholy alliance of officials and contractors of railway and health directorate responsible for corruption.

Had the recommendations been implemented, the scope of corruption would have been narrowed, observed the ACC in its 2019 Annual Report.

Their appeals, however, have been going unheeded.

To solve the problem, the ACC in its report, published yesterday, recommended giving the cabinet division the charge of evaluating and implementing its recommendations.

Government organisations and departments are "not serious enough" about curbing institutional corruption, said Iqbal Mahmood, chairman of the ACC.

He made the comments at the launching of ACC's 2019 Annual Report at a view-exchange meeting with the media at the ACC's headquarters.

"No one is taking it seriously. We've not seen any visible seriousness [among the authority over our recommendations]," he said.

"Take the instance of the health sector. We had asked the authority to blacklist 14 contractors nine months ago but no action was taken. The authority blacklisted them when the High Court asked them to do so," said the ACC's outgoing chairman.

The ACC in December 2019 had asked the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) to blacklist 14 contractors for misappropriating more than Tk 100 crore from the coffers of various government medical colleges and hospitals.

The DGHS blacklisted them in July last year when it faced huge criticism for anomalies in the procurement of PPEs and masks during the pandemic.

Iqbal said that the complexity in tax submission has disinclined people to submit returns.

Replying to a question, the ACC Chairman suggested simplifying the tax return form and making its submission completely online.

"It is the duty of NBR to check the wealth of a person before issuing a certificate. But while dealing with cases on illegal wealth, we've seen these are not done properly," he said, adding, "Taking advantage of whitening black money or legalising bribe is not acceptable."

The ACC submitted the report to President Abdul Hamid on Sunday.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the ACC could not submit the report to the President last year.

A total of 21,371 allegations were submitted to the ACC in 2019, of which 1,710 were approved for enquiry.

The ACC filed 263 cases and submitted charge sheets of 267 cases, and could ensure punishment in 63 percent of cases in 2019.

In that year, the ACC arrested 84 government officials and officers and three public representatives in connection with corruption. It also arrested 20 bank officials and staffer, and 16 others, the report says.

In its recommendations, the ACC said that it often gets allegations of transactions of huge amounts of illegal money through leasing, non-banking financial institute, cooperatives and multi-level marketing.

"It seems appropriate to the ACC to introduce a system to disclose the source of money of depositors to the authority. …. A policy can be formulated in this regard," read the report

Reiterating one of its early recommendations, the anti-graft body said people often do not get their expected service at police stations. Besides, government officials of different cadres work at the upazila level.

In this context, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) can be given charge of a police station for smooth communication and better services.

Quoting article 77(1) of the constitution, the ACC said an ombudsman is given responsibility to investigate anomalies in ministry and government offices and officers. But over the last 50 years, it has not been implemented.

"To ensure transparency and accountability in other words good governance, it has become necessary to create a post of ombudsman," it read.

Quoting a report by the National River Conservation Commission, the ACC said 139 rivers of 64 districts have been grabbed and 49,162 grabbers outside Dhaka have been identified.

Saying that misappropriation of public property is a scheduled offence under the ACC Act, the Commission has recommended to the cabinet division to give deputy commissioners of different districts directives to protect rivers.

"The DCs will submit a report about its action against grabbing every month before the cabinet division… A copy can also be given to the ACC," the report read.  

Asked about a recent report by Transparency International Bangladesh on the deteriorating corruption situation, the ACC chairman said after assessment, the report seems confusing to him.

"There is a big NGO that becomes critical on every issue, such as corruption, education or politics," he said.

"NGOs only offer criticism but do not do anything visible to address shortcomings," said Iqbal.

Replying to another question about the long delay in submitting charge sheets in the BASIC Bank scam cases, ACC chairman said investigation officers are trying to trace the destination of money.

"We'll have to answer the court regarding the whereabouts of the money. Unless we trace where the money flows to, we would not be able to submit a charge sheet," he said.

Saying that about Tk "3,500 crore" out of Tk "4,500 crore" had been returned to the BASIC Bank, he said, "Let's wait and see whether the final report is given instead of charge sheets."