ACC needs to act
After three years of BNP-led coalition rule, the ACC was formed in a haphazard manner in November 2004. During its existence for one year and eight months, the ACC has hardly been functional due to various hurdles faced by it.
First, immediately after the establishment of the ACC, there arose a tussle between the commission and the government over the appointment of the secretary to the commission. Although the law establishing the ACC gave it full authority to appoint its secretary, the government, without consulting the ACC, appointed one retired additional secretary as secretary to the commission. This was resisted by the commission at the cost of deterioration of its relationship with the government.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Second, through a government notification of December 2004, the commission was attached with the cabinet division which, in fact, became the controlling ministry/division of the commission. This struck at the root of the independence of the commission.
Third, while the tussle over the appointment of the secretary to the commission was going on, the cabinet division in a circular issued in January,2005 announced the defunct BAC staff as government's reserve employees and asked them not to work for the commission until rules and regulations were framed. They were threatened, in yet another letter, with disciplinary action if they worked.
Fourth, after a period of 20 months since the establishment of the ACC, the National Implementation Committee on Administrative Reforms (NICAR) in its meeting on June 6 approved an organogram of 650 posts, which was prepared unilaterally by the government, instead of the ACC proposed structure with 1,376 posts. A chaotic condition has been prevailing at the ACC due to the new structure.
Fifth, the Act establishing the ACC provides that, for carrying out the purposes of the Act, the commission may make rules with the prior approval of the president. The recruitment rules submitted to the government for obtaining approval of the president are known to have been returned by the government to the commission for revision . The ACC cannot go for recruitment to its sanctioned posts without recruitment rules.
Last, but not the least, a Dhaka daily (The New Nation) reported on July 22 that the ACC was in a fix as it had received contradictory directives from the government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the key funder. The ADB in a recent letter demanded that the ACC should constitute a placement committee to examine the candidates before placing them to different positions in the commission.
The law ministry, on the other hand, informed the cabinet division that formation of such a committee would be illegal, and that if such a committee had been formed it should be dissolved. This has created a hurdle for placement of screened ex-BAC staff against the posts in the approved organogram.
The ACC has been established to help eliminate corruption from the administration and the society at large. But the hurdles that the ACC has been facing since its establishment corroborate the people's perception that certain quarters are very active to make the commission inactive. It may be mentioned that a top official of the World Bank recently termed the ACC a "joke" and urged the government to make the institution effective in the combat against corruption
Furthermore, while the BNP-led alliance government is not interested in an effective ACC, the opposition political parties, including the main opposition AL, are also not pressuring the government to render the ACC necessary assistance and co-operation to make it effective. This gives credence to the perception that political parties, whether in power or in opposition, do not want a strong and effective anti-corruption watchdog.
The ACC has to cross the hurdles to move forward with whatever manpower and logistics it has at the moment. People have pinned their hope on the ACC to act as a watchdog against unbridled corruption in the country and they want the commission to help remove the nation's stigma as the most corrupt nation for five consecutive years.
In order to move forward, the members and the staff of the ACC have to forget the conflicts and confusions of the past and work in unison to achieve the stated objectives of the organisation.
Secondly, the ACC should set down its short and long-term plans to work out the modalities and implement programs to eliminate corruption.
Thirdly, the law has granted the ACC sufficient authority to proceed against the corrupt elements in the society. While doing so, the ACC must not differentiate between the corrupt elements in the ruling party/parties and the opposition.
Fourthly, there are three main actors in the high corruption drama of Bangladesh and they are the politicians, public servants, and big businessmen. While the corruption of the politicians and the public servants is a widely discussed issue, the corrupt elements in the private corporate sector generally receive less focus. The commission should squarely deal with the corrupt elements in the public sector as well as in the private sector.
To conclude, if the ACC can catch the corrupt top brass in politics, bureaucracy and private corporate sector, it will receive the support of the people and the development partners. In that case, whichever political party or alliance wins the next general election and forms the government, it will have to give necessary assistance and support to make the ACC really effective. Making the ACC really effective and truly independent should be in the manifestoes of the political parties/ alliances, particularly the major political parties/alliances, contesting the forthcoming parliamentary election.