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TI & corruption in Bangladesh
   The top slot in the league of most corrupt nations has been given to Bangladesh again, five times in a row. The first time when this dubious crown was bestowed upon this country in 2001, the current opposition Awami League was in power. How they reacted to it is on record but the then opposition and present ruling party BNP took full advantage of this development by blaming the former for bringing this stigma for the nation in its election campaign, which was amply rewarded.
   However, when the Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) again elected Bangladesh to the same position for the second time in 2002, the BNP-led four party coalition was in power and the apologists for the government attempted to explain it away by saying that the result actually represented most of what happened in 2001 and does not really represent the deeds of the government per se because it took over only in October 2001. Even if one accepts this explanation for the sake of argument, how then the performance of the same government in the three subsequent years should be judged?
   The perception of Bangladesh in the outside world is that of one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Despite the fact that the present government took over the reign in October 2001 of this stigmatized country it did not undertake any visible attempt to show that it will not condone any corruption regardless of the perpetrators’ position in the society. Sustained attempt to fight corruption by the administration would probably have helped change outsiders’ perception about the country and its absence did not do it any good.
   No doubt that the methodology applied by TI to determine the level of corruption in a given country has become controversial simply because it is not convincing. But once a country is stigmatized with the tag of being the most corrupt, it becomes difficult to shed it and more so after the repetition of the same five times in a row. Nigeria at one stage was named as the world’s most corrupt country and that got stuck to it for quite a while. When the government had taken some strong measures against corruption and showed political will by carrying them through, the outside observers had to sit up and think that something was really happening and that has actually improved its position.
   
   Corruption: not a new phenomenon
   Corruption is not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh and no country is free of corruption anywhere in the world. It is a matter of degree and that matters most. Bangladesh was never named to be the most corrupt country before the year 2001 because the popular perception about it was different. In the early 1980s following the blood-less military take over under the leadership of General Hussain Mohammad Ershad corruption began to rise. Before the first democratically elected government took over power in early 1991, the corruption had become somewhat institutionalized as it usually happens under any military-led administration. However, the trend of major corruption at the time had assumed a somewhat different character – it had spread mostly within the top echelon of the society, which could be described as ‘elitist corruption’. However, the situation appeared to have changed rather dramatically for the worst following the establishment of a democratically elected government in the early 1990s.
   While it is unfortunate as well as shameful but true that the political leaders – most of whom could be described as rabble-rousers – lacked experience in running the affairs of the state. As a result the administration lost its control and indiscipline and chaos became the norm. The political leaders, including some ministers of the ruling parties in the successive governments forgot that they were not in the opposition any more and publicly criticized the bureaucracy for any problem. Corruption galloped, which could be described as the result of democratization of corruption. Finally after 10 years of free-for-all democratically elected governments’ rule the country was awarded with the dubious distinction of being the world’s most corrupt nation in 2001.
   After the ruling Awami League lost the election in October 2001, the BNP-led four-party coalition took over the government but the members of the largest ever 60 plus new cabinet became so deeply absorbed savouring the new position that they forgot to redeem their electoral pledges. They did nothing visibly to suggest that the new regime wanted to punish the corrupt elements regardless of their being in the bureaucracy or in politics. It did, however, bring out a ‘White Paper’ of governmental corruption during the Awami League regime with a fan fare, naming names and giving some dubious details of the misdeeds’ of some of their leaders. And that was the end of it as no follow up action was initiated for reasons not known to many.
   When the country was named again in 2003 for the third time, the opposition rejoiced it and the government’s spokesperson routinely expressed anger. Some of its leaders, however, tried to refute the report by questioning TI’s motive and the methodology. The government appeared to have simply ignored the whole episode and it became business as usual. Again no serious attempt was made even to discuss and work out a strategy on how to tackle such a sensitive issue involving the nation’s image. However, Finance Minister Saifur Rahman had blasted the TI repeatedly for naming Bangladesh as the world’s Number One corrupt nation. But what he said at the parliament just days before the latest TI announcement again slamming Bangladesh to the top slot for corruption spoke volumes.
   With characteristic frankness he told the parliament that corruption had gripped every ministry of the government and that the National Board of Revenue was the worst ‘graft-infested department.’ On the scale of corruption, he said that he could name the ministries – from education to communications – where ‘corruption pervades.’ However, what was even worst when he admitted that if he takes action against the corrupt tax officials of the NBR, the entire revenue division would become empty. “I can’t do that as I have to run the office,” he added rather sheepishly. What, however, he did not say was that even the posting of the cadre service holders has come under the purview of corruption, which has become a reality but not yet being talked about widely.
   
   Bribe for cadre service posting
   Even when the candidates finally gone through the process of different types of written and oral examinations and became successful in being selected in different elite cadre services, they don’t straightway get their jobs as a matter of routine or right as used to be the case in the past. The cadre service holders have to come to an understanding with a group of people to pay an undisclosed amount of money to get the posting. Perhaps the only exceptions are the few top position holders who could become risky and are left alone. Anyone finding it difficult to believe is requested to meet any newly appointed cadre service holders and check it out with him or her how much was the cost of the posting. This scribe has the knowledge of a particular female cadre service holder who had to borrow money to pay bribe for her posting but shall remain nameless for her own good.
   Unfortunately, it has assumed the same menacing process as that of the appointment or transfer of any non-cadre police or customs officials. The particular positions are put on auction and the highest bidders get them. The successful bidders have to realize the sum that they had dished out and a sizeable profit on the top of it. That is how the edifice of the whole system functions. This could not have thrived or existed without a symbiotic relations in the entire system where everyone is the gainer.
   Communication Minister Nazmul Huda has asserted the other day that the latest TI announcement on corruption was a conspiracy to tarnish Bangladesh’s image and the government would send a protest note to the Bern-based agency. Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan also aired some such superficial view perhaps to remain politically correct without trying to decipher the real reason and suggest remedies. Both the ministers are intelligent enough to understand the hollowness of their statements but appear to feel happy that they have done their part of the job.

NINEVEH has always been a place to conjure with, lurking in people’s school-time memories or popping up in quiz shows as some sort of fabled ancient city. Founded by Nimrod, ‘the mighty hunter,’ it was in fact the last capital of the Assyrian empire, before the armies of Babylon razed most of it.
   This week Nineveh was buried again. Its evocative name belongs to one of Iraq’s 18 provinces and, thanks to its multicultural population, Nineveh was the swing region for the referendum on the constitution Iraqis voted on last Saturday. How Nineveh goes, so goes the country, as you might say.
   Remember the referendum? Last weekend the world’s airwaves were full of broadcasts about the success of the voting in which millions ‘defied the insurgents’ by turning out to cast their ballots. Then we heard preliminary but ‘informed’ speculation that the constitution had passed. Majorities of Kurds and Shias had given it enthusiastic support in the north and south-east. In Sunni areas, where voters had been expected to reject it, not enough had come forward to turn it down. The rule was that if two-thirds of voters in any three provinces rejected the constitution, it would fail. Election officials conceded that two-thirds had done so in the two fiercely anti-American provinces that include Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tikrit. But Nineveh, which Sunnis share with Kurds and Christians, had not produced a big enough no vote. So the message was: ‘Sorry, Sunnis. Our constitution is safe.’
   Along comes a second big Iraqi event: the trial of Saddam Hussein. Important though it is as a catharsis for the former dictator’s hundreds of thousands of surviving victims, it has little political significance since only a small minority of Iraqis still support him. Of course, it could backfire on the Americans if Mr. Hussein is humiliated in court by unfair or high-handed treatment. To a wider circle of Iraqis, and other Arabs, he might then become a symbol of wounded national pride, as he was briefly when Washington published pictures of his mouth being examined by a military dentist after capture.
   
   Attention diverted
   Manipulating the trial’s timing is the real story. Why suddenly this week? A fortnight ago, at Chatham House in London, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he did not know when the trial would take place. Within days a date was fixed, conveniently diverting reporters’ attention from the referendum count. With the issue out of the spotlight, it is a fair bet that when the official result is declared, the announcement that the constitution has passed will be treated as pretty dull since we already ‘know’ that from the weekend leaks by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and the Iraqi Government.
   How could they be sure, since counting was not yet complete? Was the fact that the count would be flawed the real thing they knew? Was the trial an improvised political device to get rigging out of the headlines?
   On Monday some Iraqi election officials were beginning to say they had come upon major irregularities and suspiciously high Kurdish voter turnouts, in places exceeding 95 per cent. Below the radar of the Saddam Hussein trial, more questions have been raised. Turnout figures in such cities as Najaf doubled from an initial figure of 45 per cent. In Nineveh and Diyala, another province with a Sunni Arab majority, officials initially talked of startling yes votes of up to 70 per cent in each. Later, they changed the Nineveh figure to say the no votes had won — but the figure was only 55 per cent, and so below the crucial 66 per cent threshold for rejection.
   In an analysis for the Inter Press Service, American scholar Gareth Porter questions even that figure. He says it is based on an unbelievably low turnout among Sunnis. It implies that Nineveh’s Christians, who had declared their opposition to the constitution in advance, changed their mind on the day. He quotes a U.S. military liaison officer who used to work there as admitting that Kurdish officials, who have long vied for control over Mosul, Nineveh’s main city, and inflate its population figures, stuffed ballots in January’s election and may have done it again.
   Does this matter? The constitution will be declared to have passed, because the Bush administration wants it passed. It paves the way for elections in December, which will be spun as further proof of Iraq’s gradual democratisation. Yet it will have been bought at a high price. Cheating the Sunnis is not a sensible policy, especially when, out of the other side of its mouth, the Bush administration claims to be trying to get them into the political process.
   The fact that large numbers of Sunnis voted last week does not mean they no longer support armed resistance. Reporters in Fallujah found voters who said they backed the insurgency even as they cast their ballots. This is logical enough. Iraqis who questioned the legitimacy of the January elections had no option but to boycott. Those who question the constitution’s legitimacy had a more complex choice. They could boycott it, as the Association of Muslim Scholars and some other groups close to the resistance proposed. Or they could vote it down. This made pragmatic as well as ideological sense — if you assume the counting will be fair.
   The real debate inside the insurgency seems to centre on targeting and whether car-bomb attacks on civilians are politically inept. Washington’s spooks recently released a letter purportedly intercepted from Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri. He urged his people in Iraq to give up attacks on Shias and other civilians because they alienate potential supporters. The letter may be forged, meant in part to frighten Syrians as well as Iraqis. It calls for Al-Qaeda to move on from setting up a Sunni Islamic state in Iraq when the Americans pull out — ‘perhaps faster than we imagine’ — and extend the jihad ‘to Iraq’s secular neighbours.’
   
   Unintended irony
   Most Iraqis denounce the suicide bombings as the work of foreign jihadis rather than as legitimate revenge. It would be one of the many unintended ironies of George W. Bush’s futile war on Iraq that he has spawned so much terrorism there that he now has to use letters from Al-Qaeda’s leaders to moderate the more extreme tactics of their followers.
   We print this article Courtesy The Hindu

There is a saying in Bangla, ‘dhaka shohor boro kothin jaiga, eikhane shoja angule ghee uthe na.’ To the new generation immersed in techno lingo this may seem a bit cumbersome but the main idea of this age old line is, in Dhaka city one has got to be cautious because no one knows who is after what. Well, this is actually a verbal deterrent aimed to make the city dwellers careful but with so many novel schemes adopted by confidence tricksters, often it becomes too difficult to differentiate the actual from the false. Recently, a scam operated in the city by a so called film actress called Prema has come out into the open. The said actress gathered information about certain families with sons or daughters living abroad and went to those places claiming to be close friends of the people living abroad. Then, using her acting prowess and often capitalizing on the gullibility of the mothers and fathers living here she took away cash. In one such incident Prema stepped into the house of late DIG M Mohsin in Elephant Road and told the lady of the house that she was a close friend of her son living in the UK. Saying that she had come from London the day before and could not get a chance to convert any foreign currency she asked for local currency. The old lady, trusting her gave Tk. 20,000, the amount available in the house at that time and Prema took the money saying that she would give foreign currency equivalent to that money and some gifts that she had brought from the UK if anyone accompanied her to the car. A servant was sent but the swindler got into the car and in front of a bewildered domestic help sped off.
   However, the actress was caught soon after while trying to carry off the same scam, this time claiming to come from the USA. It’s now believed that her driver and her domestic help were also involved.
   Now, before we go deeper into this whole business of swindling, a little on the actress is necessary because Prema has made it a point to be involved in controversy. A few days ago she beat up a taxi driver and there are numerous rumours on her in the market concerning anti-social dealings. Now, swindling in Dhaka city is not a new thing, in fact, if we go back to the early seventies we get the first taste of such deeds with the Hai Hai companies that opened up with promises to send young men to work in the middle-east. Many of these companies took money from unsuspecting young men and then disappeared. In the eighties, scams involved advertising for investors which said, ‘your money our ideas.’ Again the victims were mostly people coming back home after working in other countries. These people willing to do something in the country trusted these so called people with ideas and ended up penniless.
   Coming back to the new millennium we get swindling of different categories. The low level ones include the ‘spitting’ and the ‘accident’ groups. The former kind is seen on the roads. A few people get together and look out for probable victims, usually alone and vulnerable. Once such a person is detected, the group surrounds him and one man starts shouting, ‘why did you spit on me?’ and without letting the victim muster some strength to make a reply, others also start shouting and by this time the target is overwhelmed. He is taken to one corner, released off his wallet and then allowed to go. Such incidents occur in broad daylight and when so many people surround a man, passers by usually do not bother to interfere. In many other cases while one section is harassing the victim, a few others just look at other people on the road and tell them smilingly, ‘it’s just friends having fun.’ Obviously, friends can have all kinds of fun and people on the road taking it to be a harmless incident just walk off.
   The accident group is the one where one person is on a bicycle. When a car is spotted with people inside, the man in the cycle deliberately goes and gets hit by the car and then the other members surround the vehicle demanding money. In a very low level, we have people on the road taking money from people by showing snakes. The other day this writer also saw a man claiming to be mad demanding money from people with a hand full of human excreta. If you don’t pay, you get the stuff on your shirt!
   Then, there are the swindlers who go from home to home collecting money for some Urash or cultural programme. Naturally, these programmes never happen but the money is collected by giving out receipts.
   Be that as it may, though we know of such events happening all around the city, there are very few steps to stop them. In addition, we never hear of any exemplary punishment meted out to the perpetrators. For instance, what will happen to Prema? Will she be allowed to go when the hullabaloo is lost under Eid preparations? Or shall we see her getting a lesson so that others like her decide to give up their trade? It is a rational belief that Prema started this operation keeping the Eid season in view and perhaps at this moment there are many such swindlers in operation. But above all else the question that gets lost in the confusion is: how did she come to get information about people’s personal lives? This scam in which she was involved could not have been possible if she had not been informed of family details. The main question is how did she get them? The police must find this out. Somehow, this writer feels that once this information comes out, a very well planned group engaged in such acts will be exposed.