Bangladesh Government's plans to fight corruption
The government has revealed its plan to prevent corruption and
improve governance. This was done at a meeting of the Local Consultative
Group composed of our donors. It is just as well the issue of
corruption was tagged with that of governance because at the very root
of bad governance is the increasing incidents of corruption at all
levels, and the conspiracy to indulge in corruption, of which we have
been made so painfully aware of by the Padma Bridge loan episode.
The
government's intention to fight corruption, an intention that we
heartily welcome in principle, would have sounded more credible had the
Padma deal issue been handled with more sagacity.
We take the
rather lofty intention with a pinch of salt. Come as the strong resolve
does, in the backdrop of the botched Padma loan deal, we can see a link
between the two, in spite of the official insisting to the contrary. We
wonder whether it will be able to remove any bad impression from the
minds of our development partners, of the Padma graft allegations, as
hoped by the government. The issue, we are afraid, has assumed a rather
scandalous character. We wonder also what the public will make of the
particuoar statement, which to most of us carry very little of
conviction but more of an effort to save face that has been besmirched
by the rather clumsy handling of the deal.
The government may
well exult at the fact that our development partners have been very
impressed with our national integrity strategy, and who have even
expressed their desire to help us implement the plan and we would hope
that all the steps spelt out at the meeting would be implemented.
However, the nub of the issue is whether there is a political commitment
to root out corruption. And unless the Padma deal investigation is
brought to a credible conclusion, the government's intention to fight
corruption will continue to carry a question mark.
Source: The Daily Star
