ACC power to be curtailed

A provision of the Anti-Corruption Commission law is likely to be reinstated to curtail its power so that the watchdog body could not issue any arrest warrant against a government official without informing his higher authority.
The country’s top bureaucrats, mainly the secretaries of different ministries, yesterday discussed the issue and adopted a proposal to put forward to the Cabinet for amending the rules of the ACC, which had booked many bigwigs, including top politicians and bureaucrats, amid an anti-graft purge during the past interim regime under state of emergency.
Cabinet Secretary Abdul Aziz presided over the meeting at Cabinet Division.
The immediate-past caretaker government had inserted the provision in the ACC rules giving it mandate to conduct investigation and issue arrest warrant against any civil servants without informing his/her highest authority.
“Some of the secretaries have discussed the issue and recommended amending the existing law to curtail the ACC’s such power. Because, they feel that, in many cases, government officials take decision for the interest of their own organisations. It might not be his individual decision,” Aziz told reporters while briefing about the meeting.
He noted that originally such a safeguard provision was in the defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption Rule-1977 so that it should not issue such warrant. But later the provision was dropped during the caretaker government while the ACC law was enacted.
The secretaries’ meeting also discussed and made a proposal for introducing a no-meeting day and a visitor-free day in the Bangladesh Secretariat to improve the working atmosphere.
In recent days, after the political government assumed office, the number of visitors has significantly increased, which sometimes creates disturbance for the administration
The meeting also discussed an option that the minister, state minister and the secretary of a ministry should not be abroad at a time because it “hampers the decision-making process”.
The meeting discussed and recommended reintroduction of mobile courts to contain crimes, particularly adulteration of food and other consumer products, as there have been reports of widespread offence of this sort once again.
After separation of the judiciary, the operation of mobile courts was squeezed as the administration cadre service was stripped of magistracy powers.
“If such mobile courts are reintroduced, it will be within the
spirit of the separation of judiciary-there will be no contrast or
contradiction,” the Cabinet Secretary said
He noted that the home secretary placed a proposal in the meeting for arming the law-enforcing agencies with powers to do mobile-phone tracking.
“We discussed the matter mainly to contain the threat issued by miscreants through mobile phones. This power will give them authority to quickly identify the miscreants and take action against them,” Aziz said.
Meanwhile, a Cabinet subcommittee held a meeting at the Cabinet Division to discuss proposals for amending the Public Procurement Regulations (PPR) 2008 to expedite government procurement process.
The meeting, presided over by Finance Minister AMA Muhith, ended inconclusively, sources said, adding that more meetings will be held in this regard.

Courtesy of UNB, Dhaka