Experts see making ACC toothless, withdrawal of many cases as reasons
Bangladesh has attained 12th position among the most corrupt countries across the globe scoring 2.4 in Transparency International (TI) index.
In the previous year, country’s ranking was 13th while position 139th among 180 countries, according to the watchdog’s corruption-measuring barometer. This year, it has ranked Bangladesh 134th among 178 countries.
The score based on state of corruption was the same as last year for Bangladesh where it scored 2.4 in ratings in both the years.
The TI, a Berlin-based global anti-corruption watchdog released the ‘Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)-2010’ report simultaneously all over the world on Tuesday.
The TI index report of the Bangladesh chapter was released at a crowded press conference held at the National Press Club yesterday afternoon.
Executive Director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Dr Iftekharuzzaman revealed the report at the press conference. TIB Trustee Board Chairman M. Hafizuddin Khan and member Prof Dr Muzaffer Ahmad were also present there.
The CPI rating of countries is done on a scale of 0-10, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption and ten indicating low levels of the moral vice in terms of perceived degree of prevalence of political and administrative corruption.
Meanwhile, the experts expressed their opinions over the TIB’s report saying that from top to bottom corruption is a common scenario all over the country in the recent days.
Due to politicisation of the concerned sectors, the situation has aggravated. Besides, the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) has become a ‘toothless tiger’. The ACC’s drive against corruption is also slow now.
Most of the cases earlier filed by the ACC under the caretaker government have been withdrawn. Even those earlier put behind the bar for corruption, have been set free. Not only that bribe, extortion, tender business and other corrupt practices involving the leaders and activists of the present Awami League government have accelerated further. Specially, political and bureaucratic corruption has now crossed limits, the observers said.
The CPI- 2010 is based on 13 independent surveys. However, all surveys are not included in all countries. The `Surveys Used` column indicates how many surveys were relied upon to determine the score for that country.
In 2008 the position of Bangladesh was 10th. It was placed earlier at the bottom of the list for five successive years from 2001 to 2005.
According to the CPI report, Pakistan records increasing corruption and its position worsened by two degrees from 13 to 11 while India stands at 21 against its ranking 23 in the last year.
In the 2010 CPI, Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore tie in a trio for the first place with scores of 9.3 this year. Besides, Singapore Denmark and New Zealand having lowest levels of corruption around the world.
On the other hand, Afghanistan and Myanmar have been sharing the second place with a score of 1.4, while Somalia stood last with a score of 1.1, the TI report added.
Unstable governments, long-standing conflict between different quarters, continue to dominate the bottom rungs of the CPI, it is learnt.
If the sources those surveys for individual countries remain same, and if there is corroboration by more than half of those sources, real changes in perceptions can be ascertained.
Using the above criteria, it became possible to establish an improvement in scores from 2009 to 2010 for Bhutan, Chile, Ecuador, FYR Macedonia, Gambia, Haiti, Jamaica, Kuwait, and Qatar.
Similarly, a decline in scores from 2009 to 2010 can be identified for the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Madagascar, Niger and the United States, the report says.
