TI report
I was amused, though not surprised, to see that our government has "rejected" Transparency International's (TI) rating of Bangladesh as the number one corrupt nation of the world. The Awami Leagues' reaction to this dubious distinction can be stated as muted, at best; after all, it was during the AL's tenure that we reached this spot and the legacy has been successfully upheld by the present government. One need not read TI's report to find out how corrupt we are -- just take a short walk to the traffic police and any glimmer of hope will be quashed.
I have a few simple questions to our political leaders (the incumbents as well as the opposition): Do they (our leaders) know what TI is or what kind of credibility it has in the eyes of the rest of the world? Does the word "Transparency" mean anything to our leaders? Does our leadership realise that "rejecting" the TI report without any logical basis of rejection only makes a mockery of ourselves to the international community? The right attitude should have been to pause, ponder, and have an action plan to tackle the endemic corruption. Instead, the response of our government has been typical: short on wisdom, long on rhetoric.
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