Iftekharuzzaman

Fighting tax evasion, preventing trade-based illicit financial outflows and ending the culture of money laundering and loan defaults is a much more sustainable solution to adding to foreign exchange reserves than taking foreign loans on interest.

The draft Anti-Discrimination Bill 2022 was placed in parliament on April 5, 2022. Long years of civil society engagement and advocacy with the government have catalysed this initiative.

The draft Mass Media Employees (Services Conditions) Bill, placed in parliament on April 1, 2022, is a long-overdue initiative.

Two weeks after the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine, how it may eventually evolve remains uncertain, given Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s apparent mission of neutralising the neighbour—which could imply virtual annexation.

Since its creation in 2004, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has always faced trust and credibility issues.

Bangladesh has transformed from a war-ravaged, resource-starved and acutely poverty-stricken least developed country (LDC) at independence in 1971, into a low middle income country by 2015.

The Transparency International (TI) released its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2021 on January 25, 2022.

According to the latest report of the US-based NGO Global Financial Integrity (GFI) on trade-based illicit financial transfers, between 2009 and 2018, Bangladesh lost a staggering USD 8.275 billion (Tk 71,000 crore) per year, on average, through misinvoicing in export and import trade.

December 9 is observed as the International Anti-corruption Day (IACD). On this day in 2003, the United Nations called upon governments and peoples of the world to mark the adoption of the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).

The Berlin-based Transparency International released its “Government Defence Integrity (GDI) Index 2020” on November 16, 2021.

Bangladesh is often mentioned as a development dilemma for its commendable performance in terms of GDP growth and socio-economic indicators on the one hand, that on the other, contrasts strikingly with pervasive corruption and poor performance in nearly every governance indicator.

On January 28, 2021, Transparency International released its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2020. In the index, Bangladesh has scored 26 out of 100, the same as in 2019.

The coronavirus pandemic has been converted into a festival of corruption in the health sector in Bangladesh. Crises like these do increase the risk of corruption everywhere in the world. However, there is perhaps no other country where corruption has been found to be as awkwardly pervasive as in Bangladesh.

The Swiss Banking authorities published their annual update on deposits of foreign nationals, including Bangladeshis, on June 25. It shows 603.2 million Swiss Francs or Tk 5,367 crores invested by Bangladeshis, which is 2.38 percent less than that in 2019.

The enthusiastic national celebrations of the Mujib Year have the potential of a great historical value in many different ways.

By all credible indications, voting in the two city corporations of the capital has taken place in an uneven playing field—an electoral space that has been intimidatingly patrolled to ensure its monopolisation.

Transparency International (TI) released its Corruption Perception Index 2019 on January 23, 2020. Bangladesh has scored 26 out of 100, the same as in 2018.

The year 2019 was essentially business as usual in terms of corruption in Bangladesh, as it continued to a be challenge of ever-increasing concern except for two notable features that drew public attention.

Media interest on the recently launched high-profile anti-corruption drive appears to be on the wane thanks to many competing issues.

It is well known even the least successful example of democracy is better than no democracy. This is because at the core of democratic principles, is accountability of the government to the people. Although no one size fits all, and depending on historical experiences, cultural, social, political and developmental context, there can be many different ways of progression towards democracy, accountability or checks and balances are the key word in the process.