The New Nation - Internet Edition

Amit Imran

When the country was facing tremendous internal political conflicts and drifting towards a civil war, the current caretaker government headed by Dr. Fakruddin Ahmed took the charge of the country through a dramatic procedure on January 11, 2006. Although the birth of this caretaker government, which can also be termed as the interim government as per the constitutional emergency power rule, itself was questionable among the political leaders and the general countrymen but through the initial activities of this government, it had earned a trust of being neutral and trustworthy.

Although the function of the caretaker government is to create an appropriate environment and to hold a free, fair, creditable and acceptable general election and hand over the power to an elected government but the current caretaker government backed with the support of the armed forces has taken many pragmatic steps to uplift the socio-economic and economic conditions of the country.

Some of the successful and time-befitting measures taken by the government include separation of judiciary from administration, empowering Anti-Corruption Commission, Election Commission, creating a creditable & appropriate voter list and creating national identity cards with photographs within a very short time.

One of the mandates of this caretaker government after taking office was to curb down corruption and ensure that corrupted politicians or people involved with corruption will not contest in the next general election. In order to turn this mandate into reality, the government reformed and empowered the Anti-Corruption Commission, and created special cross-functional taskforces and a special cell named National Crime Control Taskforce.

While the government on the one side continued to perform the day to day work, that is the routine work of any government, and on the other side, in addition to creating an environment for election, started to identify the politicians, government officials and other people who were involved with corruption or who misused their power for personal benefits. Anti-Corruption Commission started to conduct a drive to bring these corrupt people under the rule of law.

As their first step, the commission asked for the valuation of the properties which their suspects possess. In the second step, the commission scrutinized the valuation and details of the properties provided by the suspects. And finally, legal actions were being taken against those suspects where any deviation between the information provided by the suspects and the investigation reports were found.

As a consequence of these, many renown politicians along with the former Prime Ministers, former deputy ministers, former state ministers, members of the cabinet, members of the parliament, mayors of different city corporations and some high government officials were arrested. Corruption cases were being filed and charge sheets were being submitted. After going through the trial, many of them were proved to be convicted and were sentenced to punishment.

This drive against corruption induced the people to visualize Bangladesh as a corruption free country. But as the time of the general election as per the road-map of the Election Commission is coming nearby, the drive against corruption has slowed down.

It seems that the Anti-Corruption Commission has lost its momentum and the interest not only in identifying new corrupts but even with continuing the cases filed by them.

The commission has again worn its previous mask of being ineffective and inactive.

Most of the arrested politicians are being released on bail and the commission or the government hardly seems to be concerned about this matter.

The story does not only end here, many of them have even informally started their election campaign as they think that they can participate in the upcoming national polls. If these people are going to contest in the next general election then can we expect to see a corruption free Bangladesh.

The role of the caretaker government suddenly seems very unpredictable. If the government did not take proper measures to ensure necessary legal, financial and logistical support to the Anti-Corruption

Commission, then why did the government waste time and money in initiating such a vast project?

We, the ordinary citizens of the country supported and applauded the government for its initiatives taken to curb down corruption from the country - did we supported them to show us just a trailer version? If these people who were voluntarily or involuntarily involved with corruption participate in the upcoming national polls, then how can we even dream of having a corruption-free Bangladesh?

I, personally believe that this caretaker government should take stern measures against the corrupts and provide logistical and backup support to the Anti-Corruption Commission so that we can have a corruption free state. The government do not have the right to embarrass the Anti-Corruption Commission, a government agency, and make it look like a failure.

Corruption is like a worm in an apple which slowly eats up the apple and destroys its taste and appearance and finally spoils it completely. Corruptions can only deteriorate the development of the country and hamper its potential prosperity. I hope that the government will profoundly look into this matter and resolve the problem within the shortest possible time. The government should turn the dream of having a corruption-free Bangladesh into a reality which every citizen of this country hopes to see.