News analysis
Corrupt ministers, nothing to worry
Syed Badrul Ahsan
http://www.dailydinkal.net/2011/09/18/1/details/1_r4_c8.jpg
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has promised to show the door to any minister found involved in corruption. One ought to have every reason to feel elated at such an expression of decisiveness on the part of the head of government.
Unfortunately, the elation goes missing when the prime minister adds that for a minister to be taken off the cabinet, one must come up with proof that the minister has been engaged in wrongdoing. The conclusion which you then draw is that absolutely nothing is going to happen to any minister, that all ministers will be there, safe in their jobs, till the term of the government comes to an end.
And all those calls over these past many months for a reshuffle of the cabinet have as good as come to naught. For any minister to leave government, for anyone to suggest that a minister is corrupt, their accusers must now come forth with hard, documentary evidence of their dark deeds before the prime minister will consider asking them to go.
But that is not how democracy functions. In a republic, an unhappy citizenry, worried by the perceived wrongdoing of ministers or by their poor performance, have all the right in the world to demand that they leave or be stripped of their responsibilities in order for the administration to re-inject energy into its working, for the country to move on. In more liberal and patently responsible democracies, ministers who stand accused of corrupt dealings or plain incompetence take it upon themselves to resign.
And then there is another way of showing respect to popular feeling, which is for a minister to step down for sometime and stay away from power until such time as when he or she is cleared (if at all) of the charges brought against him or her. And those charges, brought by a public made weary through ministerial ill performance or shady dealings, are to be investigated not by the public but by the appropriate agency of the government.
In India, the case against A Raja was inquired into by the Criminal Bureau of Investigation, not by those who first served up those reports of the allegations against him through the media. Manmohan Singh made sure that Raja first resigned. Once that was done, the CBI took over. There is absolutely no instance of the Indian prime minister suggesting that evidence be first brought into the public domain against Raja before he could be dismissed from the cabinet.
In the extremely charged politics, we happen to be going through in Bangladesh today, there is little question that something is gravely wrong with the performance of some of our ministers. Away in Hamburg, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni has been telling the nation that she would quit if the people want her to. And then she adds that those gunning for her are people envious of the successes of the Foreign Office. What successes? That our diplomatic establishment has stayed almost comatose, indeed has been forced into an emasculated state over the past three years is a reality no one can overlook.
Questions over the performance of the communications minister and his ministry are in a constant state of multiplication. The prime minister, the minister in charge and others in the government have in the past couple of months informed us that the past government, or governments, did little to improve the condition of roads and highways across the country. Maybe they have a point.
The bigger point, though, relates to the times between January 2009 and now. In all this time, what has this government done to show that its record has been any better than that of those it points the finger at? Let the facts be clear: all this noise about roads, all these frantic activities over road repairs, all those walking tours by the communications minister would not be there if citizens had not begun to express their exasperation at the way their lives were being twisted into unreality by the potholes, the sliced off stone and mortar on what used to be roads. Should these roads have not been taken care of by the authorities on their own? And shouldn't some heads have rolled by now over this whole nightmare of citizens' suffering?
No, it is not for the citizens of this people's republic to gather evidence of corruption against the functionaries of the government. It is for the prime minister, it should have been for the prime minister to take action against non-performing ministers before we as citizens began to grumble. It should have been for the prime minister to reassure us that drivers would have to undergo and pass examinations before they could qualify for licences. It is the job of the prime minister to see that ministers do not become trapped in conflicts of interest, that they do not serve in the government and yet remain attached to trade unions at the same time.
The prime minister has ordered an inquiry into alleged corruption over the Padma bridge project. The thought is cheering.
But why did such action have to come when reports began to appear overseas about Canadian investigations into perceived corrupt deals related to the project? After the World Bank demonstrated clear displeasure and annoyance at everything going wrong over the planned bridge?
Must we always act when people abroad begin to scowl at us and not before?
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=202929
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