Editorial
Bangladesh's corruption image slightly better
Let the pace be sustained
Bangladesh has fared better in 2011 compared to its performance in curbing corruption last year, according to the Transparency International (TI)'s report released on December 1.
Lifting itself by a notch on the Corruption Performance Index (CPI), it has scored 2.7. It ranks 13th from the bottom out of the 182 countries brought under this year's survey on global corruption.
This latest CPI shows that Bangladesh has made a good deal of progress in its performance between 2001 and 2005. Over that period, its status plummeted to the base level of the most corrupt nation.
So, this year's gain shows that Bangladesh is at least inching its way forward out of its poor records of the past.
That this is rather a very modest achievement is clear from the fact that Bangladesh is still well below the score of 3, the threshold that it must cross to get out of the category of nations red-marked as harbouring unbridled corruption.
As the report card shows, we have performed better than Afghanistan, Pakistan, Maldives, Nepal and Myanmar, but we are still behind Bhutan, Sri Lanka and India.
Steps like Right to Information Act, Whistleblower Protection Act, establishment of the Information Commission and Human Rights Commission, adoption of an implementation strategy of UN convention against corruption have gone into improving the country's score card.
There is hardly any room for complacency. For the proposal to clip the power of the ACC does not bode well for the sustainability of the achievements made on the CPI.
So, the need is to be focussed on the agenda of consolidating the gains on CPI to make it sustainable. To this end, the government must meet its electoral pledges.
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