You have not yet counted everybody; they are 150 millions including you and me. Now, go ahead and estimate the corruption position, 10th or what?
To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
From: ezajur.rahman@q8.com
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:41:40 +0300
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Bangladesh now ranks 10th most corrupt
Bangladesh ranks 10th 'most corrupt'
TIB terms anti-graft drives misdirected
Courtesy New Age 24/9/08 Staff Correspondent
Bangladesh's ranking slightly improved to 10th in Transparency International's global corruption perception index this year, with local officials believing that judicial and administrative drawbacks limited the success of anti-graft crackdown.
The country held 7th and 3rd positions from the bottom in 2007 and 2006 in the rating of Berlin-based corruption watchdog.
Bangladesh scored 2.1 points this year compared with 2.0 of the previous two years, meaning that the anti-corruption drive that landed scores of high-profile graft suspects in jail had just added 0.1 point to the country's score in the TI rating.
Terming this year's score 'statistically not so significant', TI Bangladesh chairman Professor Muzaffer Ahmad said that the interim government had not initiated adequate administrative reforms to accomplish the tasks of addressing corruption and thus fulfil public expectations.
'An improvement of only 0.1 point in the CPI is the manifestation of public expectation from and frustration out of the
anti-corruption drives. Had the judiciary not been influenced in regretting bails or granting bails in procession, the ranking could have been better,' Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International's Bangladesh chapter, observed presenting the report at the National Press Club.
Somalia has been rated as the most corrupt country in 2008 in the list of 180 countries. From the bottom, Myanmar and Iraq together became second, Haiti third, Afghanistan fourth, and Sudan, Guinea and Chad jointly stood fifth in this year's TI ranking.
Corruption is perceived to be the lowest in three countries — Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden — that jointly topped the list with a score 9.3 closely followed by Singapore which scored 9.2 in a scale of 10 that measures perceived corruption in surveyed countries.
In South Asia, Pakistan increased its score from 2.4 to 2.5, Nepal from 2.5 to 2.7 and Bhutan from 5.0 to 5.2 whereas India's score declined to 3.4 from 3.5, Maldives' to 2.88 from 3.3 and Afghanistan's to 1.5 from 1.8.
Bangladesh belongs to the category of 72 countries that have scored below 3 or what is considered prevalence of rampant corruption.
'Corruption is no monopoly of the developing countries. Poor performers and backsliders include wealthy countries too,' said Iftekharuzzaman. He referred to the decline of the United Kingdom's score from 8.4 in 2007 to 7.7 in 2008 — a fall that has been attributed to the British government's interventions into investigations of alleged bribery in a deal with Saudi Arabia.
Bangladesh was tagged with the stigma of the most corrupt country in the TI's corruption perception index for five successive years between 2001 and 2005 — a branding that brought widespread criticism for the two elected regimes of Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
However, both the parties rejected the TI's rating while in power and widely used it in political campaigns while out of power.
The TI's ranking is based on poll covering 13 surveys and data from 11 institutions while the data coming from seven sources were compiled to determine Bangladesh's position.
Muzaffer admitted that Bangladesh made certain progress in score and ranking in perceived corruption, despite increase in petty corruption these days. 'Those who are respondents in the questionnaire for the survey may have appreciated decline in grand corruption in spite of increase in petty corruption,' he told a questioner.
'This government has not been able to draw conclusion of anti-corruption cases for making permanent marks on public morale. It cannot make arrangement for disposing of cases within shortest possible time, as the normal judicial process to deal with corruption cases is very slow,' he pointed out. 'The way the government began anti-corruption drives was right but the means of achieving them were wrong.'
Responding to a volley of questions if much-vaunted anti-corruption drives initiated after January 11, 2007 political changeover ended up in fiasco, Muzaffer expressed the hope that the next political government would continue anti-corruption drives to live up to the expectation of voters.
Asked if the interim government only targeted politicians in the name of curbing corruption, he expressed his views that since the politicians were the key decision makers and political corruption remained pervasive, they had to face more troubles during such drives.
The media played a strong role to create public awareness against corruption, but the voice of the civil society was missing in this regard, said Professor Muzaffer, who earned the public image as a crusader against corruption for his straightforward opinions against pervasive graft in the governance.
Grand corruption reduced but other corruption rampant, say economists
Courtesy New Age 24/9/08 Staff Correspondent
Corruption in the day-to-day affairs of life, especially small businesses, has not declined in spite of the massive anti-corruption drive by the present interim government despite progress in cutting down grand corruption, said economists on Tuesday
Dwelling on Bangladesh's ranking in the Transparency International's corruption perception index this year, Zaid Bakht and Mustafizur Rahman observed that the report reflected a slight improvement in curbing institutional corruption in the form of taking kickbacks while striking big deals.
However, left-leaning economist Anu Muhammad ruled out any decline in corruption in any form, saying that compromises on political and other fronts were the evidence of corrupt practice by the present government which came to power under a 'camouflage' of anti-corruption campaign.
He also rejected the TI's report as, he argued, it is based on the perception of the executives and ignores the whole gamut of corporate corruption. 'The CPI does not in any way reflect the real extent of corruption in a country,' said Professor Anu of Jahangirnagar University.
Mustafiz, executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, was optimistic about continuation of anti-corruption campaign by the next political government, while Bakht, research director of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, expressed doubts whether the leadership could effectively address petty corruption in institutions such as land administration, port, transport and the bureaucracy.
They, however, agreed on one point — that Bangladesh would not go back to a state of corruption in which public office bearers could make money by manipulating the tenders in a rampant manner, increasing the overall cost of doing business.
'Some reforms have been made, limiting the scope for corruption,' said Mustafiz, explaining that corruption takes a huge toll on economic development and growth and hits hardest the poorer segment of society.
Zaid Bakht said there were corrupt elements within the oversight institutions but felt that a new dynamics had been created for the next elected government to take positions and build institutions to address corruption.
Anu Muhammad said there were determined moves to award various deals to multinational companies through corrupt means by showing artificial crises in different sectors. 'So nothing has changed in terms of corruption,' he added.
Politicians say rate of bribes has increased due to 'risk fee'
Courtesy New Age 24/9/08 Staff Correspondent
People are paying more to get the services due to them as the rate of bribes has increased because corrupt officials and functionaries are taking 'risk fee', they claimed.
Transparency International Bangladesh does not consider that corruption is decreasing in the country, though it has gained three places in this year's TI Corruption Perception Index report, published worldwide on Tuesday.
'We are happy with the improvement of Bangladesh in the index. But it [TIB report] reflects only half of the actual corruption situation,' said Awami League's presidium member, Matia Chowdhury.
'The report was based on the reports of the media that was not free in last two years. In fact, corruption has increased in the last two years and incidents of corruption by a section of the society were not reported in the media,' she said. 'The general people, who are the real victims of persistent corruption, could not tell their stories due to fear and threats.'
The BNP's joint secretary-general, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, supported the observation of the TIB. 'I do not differ with the TIB's observation,' he said. 'The interim government has tried to create a sensation in the name of the anti-corruption drive, but this drive did not provide any respite to the masses who had to go on giving bribes for getting the services they are naturally entitled to. So systemic corruption still persists.'
'In many cases the rate of bribe has increased as the corrupt officials and functionaries now take risk fee these days,' he said. 'Corruption cannot be contained by imposing penalties only. It requires systematic improvement to reduce the scope of bribe in an institution.'
The Worker Party's president, Rashed Khan Menon, echoed TIB's observation. 'Gaining rank in the index of the world's most corrupt countries does not mean that corruption has declined.'
The Communist Party of Bangladesh's general secretary, Mujahidul Islam Selim, cold-shouldered the TIB's report. 'Everyone knows that corruption did not decrease last year in spite of the TIB's report. The ordinary people are the daily victims of increasing corruption.'
'It seems that corruption will increase further next year as the government is compromising with the major perpetrators of corruption by releasing them from prison,' he added.
When he was asked about the latest TIB report, home adviser and chairman of the NCC, MA Matin, expressed his disappointment at the state of corruption. 'We could not complete the anti-corruption drive we started initially.'
He, however, said that the government would continue the drive with the same spirit with which it had initiated the move at the beginning.
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