Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman Ghulam Rahman said his insight into the proposed amendments to the ACC law is like that of a blind man watching an elephant.
“Nobody ever officially informed us of the amendments the cabinet has finalised. Our situation is just like the blind men watching an elephant,” Ghulam Rahman said while speaking as the chief guest at a roundtable yesterday.
The roundtable on Amendment Proposal of ACC Law and Citizens’ Concern was organised by Sushashoner Jonno Nagorik (Shujan) at the Jatiya Press Club in the morning.
The discussion called on the government to either make the commission a constitutional body or shut it down.
“The amendments will turn ACC into a worthless institution. Once the amendments are passed, it is the government who would decide what the commission would do. Then what will be the use of keeping an anti-graft body?” said Shujan Secretary Badiul Alam Majumder, the keynote speaker.
Badiul Alam cited The Daily Star report headlined “Only people’s graft to be under watch,” published on Sunday, as the moot point for the discussion since, he said, there was no official information about the proposed amendments.
It is necessary to turn the ACC into a constitutional institution so that no government can pull a stunt on people in the name of a “stronger” and “more effective” anti-graft body, he added.
Iftekharuzzaman, the executive director of Transparency International, Bangladesh, said the motive behind the amendments is to establish administrative and political control over the ACC.
Referring to the movement that turned the Bureau of Anti-Corruption into the ACC in 2004, TIB Trustee Prof Muzaffer Ahmad said “If the authority to conduct probe is seized from the ACC, it would assume a status worse than the anti-corruption bureau.”
Speakers demanded the government seek public opinion before adopting the amendments and compel its agencies to give the commission necessary information.
TIB Chairman M Hafizuddin Khan, columnist Syed Abul Maksud, and former ACC member Prof Moniruzzaman Miah were present at the roundtable conducted by former inspector general of police ASM Shahjahan.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
