"It is usual that any sort of crime will turn institutional and spread its wings in the absence of trial and punishment. This has been happening here."

— TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman

Almost 71 percent homes had to endure corruption while getting services last year, which is 4.3 percent more than that of four years ago, found a Transparency International Bangladesh survey.

Unveiling the "Corruption in Service Sectors: National Household Survey 2021" on 15,454 homes nationwide, the TIB yesterday said the most graft-ridden service sectors were the police and its different wings, Department of Immigration and Passports, and Bangladesh Road Transport Authority.

The households had to pay an estimated Tk 10,830 crore in bribes last year, which is 0.4 percent of the country's GDP and 5.9 percent of the revised budget of 2020-2021 fiscal year, it said.

On average, each home had to pay Tk 6,636 in bribes to get services last year, said the report.

The TIB has been publishing this report since 1997 with a usual interval. The latest one, the ninth edition, was delayed by the pandemic.

The report covered at least 22 service sectors "riddled with petty corruption" but excluded areas known for large-scale corruption such as procurement, supply chain, and mega projects, the TIB said.

"… the overall service sector graft situation is alarming and [corruption] has taken an institutional form," said TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman at the press conference organised for the report unveiling at its office.

He said corruption situation in some sectors worsened last year while some others, including education, power, and agriculture, improved, albeit still at high level.

Iftekharuzzaman said bribery, extortion , embezzlement, deception, negligence of duty, nepotism and attempts to spread influence were marked as corruption under the study.

Unfortunately, corruption continued to spread in sectors that are supposed to control it and ensure enforcement of law, he said.

According to the report, 74.4 percent homes seeking services from law enforcement agencies endured corruption last year compared to 72.5 percent in the 2017 report.

At least 70.5 percent households dealt with graft in getting passport-related services. It was 67.3 percent in 2017.

In the case of BRTA-related services, last year's number was 68.3 percent and 2017's percentage was 65.4 percent.

The report said the average monthly income of each household surveyed was Tk 25,187 and the average expenditure was Tk 22,055.

At least 55.4 percent homes faced difficulty in getting services due to negligence of duty. This is worse as the percentage in 2017 was 39.9 percent.

The report said 40.1 percent homes had to pay bribes or make irregular transactions of money. This is an improvement as the report of 2017 put the number at 49.8 percent.

Iftekharuzzaman said the decline in homes enduring bribery could be considered an "achievement" but such achievement has been overshadowed by the rise in overall corruption. The misuse of power continued in various other forms, he said.

More than 72 percent of the respondents said they had to bribe or else they would not get the services, Iftekharuzzaman said.

Digitalisation of some services in a few sectors could be a reason for the decline in bribery, he said, adding that it was a highly effective method of reducing corruption.

It is possible to control corruption effectively by ensuring digitalisation of services along with ensuring accountability and punishment of the culprits, he said.

He said the government's top level had committed to "zero tolerance" for corruption but corruption was rampant among public servants responsible for making the government pledge a reality.

The government and the Anti-Corruption Commission have mechanism to prevent corruption but there is a lack in effective enforcement, he said.

"It is usual that any sort of crime will turn institutional and spread its wings in the absence of trial and punishment. This has been happening here," he added.

Iftekharuzzaman said about 19 percent of the respondents filed complaints with the authorities concerned and of them only 0.2 percent lodged complaints with the ACC. The ACC should find out why so many people are not interested in seeking their support, he added.

Contacted, Jahangir Alam, additional secretary (police and NTMC wing) of the home ministry's Public Security Division, yesterday said they would be able to make comments on the report after going through it.

"… I will check tomorrow [today], discuss it with the secretary, and then would be able to give an opinion," he told this paper.

"Bangladesh is a democratic country. There is freedom of expression and anybody can say anything," he added.

We are shocked to learn of the recent findings of the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) about the Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital in Dhaka. According to the anti-graft watchdog, the hospital has been plagued by corruption, irregularities and autocratic practices, due to which the quality of its services has significantly deteriorated. The TIB has particularly mentioned the name of the chairman of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society (BDRCS) for such degradation, which is alarming.

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Victims of a rotten healthcare system

Reportedly, this non-profit healthcare institution under BDRCS has been unable to admit patients as per its beds. Out of its 528 beds, only 300 on average remain occupied by patients. This means that the hospital's income has also declined significantly. What is most surprising is that it has employed three times more staffers than necessary, which has resulted in about 208 of them having no work to do. The TIB has found that these appointments were made based on political considerations. Irregularities have also been found in procurement and promotional activities. Overall, a serious lack of good governance in all aspects of its operations has brought the hospital to its current state.

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A corruption crackdown in health sector is a need of the hour

Over the past few years, we have come to know of many public and private hospitals that have been operating without any kind of accountability and transparency. The most recent example of this is Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), which reportedly recruited doctors and staff by bending the rules of the institution, while encouraging corruption. The services of many of these hospitals have also been questionable – the recent deaths of a mother and her newborn following a botched C-section in a city hospital is a case in point. Unfortunately, although such anomalies are often reported in the media, hardly any action is taken by the authorities.

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When will our health system put patients before profits?

To improve the quality of services at the Holy Family Hospital, the authorities concerned must check the corruption and irregularities plaguing it. They must ensure it has a structured workforce, is transparent in its operation, and runs without political interference. The interests of patients must always be prioritised.

Dr Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), talks about how corruption and a lack of good governance have crippled the country's healthcare services, and what needs to be done to overcome the challenges facing this sector, in an exclusive interview with Naznin Tithi of The Daily Star.

Recently, there have been allegations of irregularities in the recruitment process of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), specifically against its vice-chancellor. Although the health minister said the allegations would be looked into, we still do not know of any action being taken by the government. What could be the reason behind this?

Allegations of irregularities in the recruitment process of public bodies, such as general and specialised public universities, are nothing new. Barring a few exceptions, it has become almost a way of life. According to credible research and investigative reports, the main factor behind the wide prevalence of such irregularities is the lack of both preventive and corrective measures against partisan political influence, nepotism, favouritism, and various types of illicit payments – which have been allowed to be institutionalised violating the relevant rules.

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Not a place for corruption

The BSMMU corruption recently revealed by several evidence-based media reports represents the typical ball game of the recruitment business. It is disappointing that recruitment at such a premier institution, dedicated to advanced health education and medical services, is bedevilled by so many irregularities and a lack of accountability. But it is not surprising at all, because the rot is allegedly at the highest levels, which means they enjoy unlimited impunity due to partisan political connections. This not only accounts for inaction against various forms of abuse of power, but also indiscriminately compromises fundamentals of due process, accountability mechanisms, and institutional integrity.

Some recent incidents have also exposed the lack of accountability and ill practices prevailing in private healthcare facilities. The tragic death of a mother and her newborn (the latter in the capital's Central Hospital) is a case in point. How can we hold private healthcare facilities accountable?

Like any other public service delivery sector, health services are deeply troubled by corruption and lack of accountability. The sector has always been starved of resources due to one of the lowest rates of budgetary allocation by the global standards. More importantly, even the comparatively meagre resources are subjected to various forms of corruption, misappropriation and misuse, procurement fraud, extortion, and swindling. As the health sector was exposed to sharper spotlight after the onset of the Covid pandemic, the long-nourished anomalies in the sector were more graphically exposed, accompanied by evidence of how the pandemic became a blatant profit-making opportunity for some patronage-rich, vested quarters.

A frustrating picture of governance deficit and corruption was recently revealed by a study conducted by TIB on the Holy Family Red Crescent Hospital. The findings were particularly disappointing, given the hospital's glorious history as a service provider carrying the International Red Cross and Red Crescent brand, no less.

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A corruption crackdown in health sector is a need of the hour

Similar revelations have come to the fore through earlier TIB research conducted on both public and private health sectors. The private sector has agreeably filled a significant gap of health service facilities against a growing demand, which the public sector is justifiably unable to meet. Regrettably, due to a lack of specific legal and regulatory framework – and more so, in the absence of any strategically designed road map towards achieving health service excellence – the private health sector has witnessed mushrooming growth, with the almost-exclusive motive of making profits.

Professional expertise, experience, and excellence have been undermined to allow private health businesses to flourish on power drawn from money, fraudulence, and connections. The much-talked-about Regent Group's collusive fraud to extort public money in the name of providing health services during the Covid crisis, without meeting the minimum basic requirement of having a licence, is no isolated event. It is common knowledge that the overwhelming majority of private healthcare establishments do not meet the minimum level of professional skills, equipment, and facilities.

Again, there are definitely some exceptions. But the private health sector has been captured by unscrupulous hospitals, clinics, and diagnostic centres all over the country, creating a thriving business sector that is based on extortion, fraud, and various other illegalities, and non-compliance of whatever regulations or policies that exist. All these have rendered quality health service in Bangladesh a pipe dream. The Central Hospital story is just an example of a frustrating state of health rights and security.

The High Court recently observed that corruption has permeated every level of the health sector. It has also criticised the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) for not playing its role.

This is not the first time that the High Court has made such observations about corruption and the role of ACC. The court's concerns over health sector corruption and its doubts about ACC's role provide a judicial validation for a prevailing trust deficit about whether the commission is effective in delivering its mandate, especially when the "big fish" are involved.

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Can a bureaucrat-reliant ACC really be independent?

To be sure, ACC has its own limitations. Those with power in political and governance spaces have not fully come to terms with the concept of an independent, specialised corruption control body. This is manifested by a history of legal amendments and administrative actions taken to curtail its powers. The ACC itself hasn't always shown the courage or capacity to exercise whatever legal and institutional capacity it has been endowed with, without fear or favour. Effective delivery of the ACC mandate, therefore, demands changes of mindset and actions within the commission and beyond.

TIB has been working for long to unearth the ill practices in our health sector and has also given some recommendations to change the situation. What happens after the TIB reports are published? What kind of reforms are needed to heal our health sector?

Indeed, TIB's work on health sector corruption, as for any other sector, is aimed at catalysing positive changes on legal, institutional, policy and practice levels through its research and knowledge-based engagement and advocacy with stakeholders (including government and other relevant authorities). Every report we publish is transformed into policy briefs containing specific recommendations for change, using which we reach out to the authorities and try to push for actions, which often result in fruition. I would not say that we have been able to control corruption as such, which is not our mandate anyway. But as a demand-side actor, we have in fact been able to contribute to build stronger potentials of the state to control corruption through numerous new or amended laws, policies, institutions, and strategies. Regrettably, the problem remains in enforcement and implementation. We bring the horse to water; whether it will drink or not depends on itself.

The Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has urged the government to publish the draft Bank Companies (Amendment) Act for the interest of the people.

"This is not a secret document, so it should be published," said the anti-graft organisation in a press release yesterday.

The cabinet approved the draft of the Act on March 28 in order to reform the banking sector.

When the draft got the nod from the cabinet nearly one month ago, it was expected that the government would publish it in order to receive feedbacks and recommendations from the stakeholders as a usual practice of the current government, the TIB said.

"But the document has not been published yet."

Quoting media reports, the press release said the TIB was astonished when it came to know that the banking division of the finance ministry declined to share the draft Act with a mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently, citing it as a classified document.

As per the reform actions agreed with the IMF for the $4.7 billion loan programme, the government is supposed to submit the draft to parliament by June.

In any logic, the draft Act, which is directly linked with the public interests, cannot be a classified document.

But there might be a question of whether the amendment has given priority to the interest of vested groups rather than protecting the interest of the public.

Confusion is being created over a document that is not classified and this is because the policies of the banking sector are dictated by loan defaulters and people involved with loan scams and capital flight, the TIB alleged.

So, the draft should be made public as soon as possible, it said.

The TIB said the draft should be finalised in a transparent manner by incorporating the feedbacks and recommendations of experts and stakeholders.

"Otherwise, the government's will to restore good governance in the banking sector will remain questionable."

As expected, the Awami League government—three ministers, to be specific—reacted sharply after the publication of a research report titled "The 12th Parliament Election Process Tracking," which included a survey on 50 constituencies in the January 7 election by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB). The research found the election to be one-sided—one that was staged to appear competitive. "It is an ominous sign regarding the future of democracy and democratic elections in Bangladesh," said TIB's executive director Iftekharuzzaman. The research, which was conducted in 50 out of 300 constituencies in eight divisions between June 2023 and January 2024, found multiple irregularities in all the constituencies surveyed on election day.

No sooner had the report hit the newsstands than AL General Secretary Obaidul Quader accused TIB of speaking in the language of BNP, and even went one step further by terming it to be BNP's agent—reminiscent of Mannan Bhuiyan, former secretary general of BNP, bringing up a similar accusation in 2006. Regarding the TIB report, Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud said, "It seems that there is a similarity in terms of language between what BNP says and what TIB is saying." Meanwhile, the State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat said, "TIB has done the research in 10 days of the national election and reached many conclusions. I don't know how it is possible to conduct the research within a short period." Of course, the report was not done "in 10 days" but over seven months, as mentioned above.

Anybody with rudimentary knowledge of Bangladesh's politics, at least of the last 33 years—since the fall of autocrat Ershad—knows that AL and BNP differ on practically everything under the Sun. I could throw a riddle at my readers and ask: "Can you name one thing or issue or an institution in the hatred of which both our leading parties are united?" The answer is, of course, TIB.

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From one party to one person: What was de facto is now de jure

TIB, which is the Bangladesh chapter of Transparency International (TI), was founded as a trust in 1996 and registered as an NGO in 1998. TI launched its first global Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) report in 2001, which coincided with the last year of Awami League's first term in office (during 1996-2001). The report identified Bangladesh as being at the top of the list of countries perceived as highly corrupt.

All hell broke loose immediately, to say the least.

Given its proclivity to smell a conspiracy in everything that does not sing its praise, AL reacted with unprecedented rage, saying that the index was nothing but a "conspiracy" to discredit the party before the election which was to be held some months later. The publicity apparatus of AL, which was considerable since it was the ruling party at that time as well, began a concerted tirade against this newly formed body. The disclaimers that the report was not of TIB—which is based in Bangladesh—but of TI—which is based in Berlin—and that the former had nothing to do with it fell on deaf ears.

BNP, on the contrary, could not hold back its joy and considered the 2001 CPI the most authentic vindication of all its anti-AL propaganda. Its praise for TIB knew no bounds.

However, when BNP came to power in 2002, its tone, as expected, reversed. It was now BNP's turn to be angry and attack TIB. While AL's praise continued unabated, BNP carried out a tirade against TIB for the four successive years that Bangladesh occupied the same slot, saying TIB was a pro-AL body and that its secret agenda was to discredit Khaleda Zia's government and bring AL back to power. Separately, TIB—through its own research—exposed BNP's failure to curb corruption and showed how this malaise had spread throughout the country. In 2006, BNP's anger reached such a pitch that it threatened to close down TIB's branches in 64 districts by lodging cases in all districts. One of TIB's reports exposed corruption in local government in particular, whose minister, Mannan Bhuiyan, made it his personal crusade to castigate TIB and used the whole government machinery to harass, discredit, and intimidate the organisation. BNP's local-level leaders and activists even ransacked at least two TIB offices in Lalmonirhat and Faridpur, and physically assaulted the young volunteers of TIB.

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Election Commission's burden of a looming non-inclusive election

Throughout this period when BNP was in power, AL's praise for TIB fell like the monsoon rains and the party termed it to be as brave, courageous, and authentic an organisation as could be.

However, the tables turned once more with AL returning to power in 2008. In reaction to a TIB report exposing the highest rate of corruption in legal services through the National Household Survey, three defamation cases were lodged against TIB by pro-AL lawyers in different places (Cumilla, Khagrachari, and Chattogram), each containing exactly the same narrative of allegations.

Under both regimes, tirade against TIB featured even in parliamentary deliberations.

In a furious reaction against a TIB report titled "Parliament Watch," which had exposed the weaknesses of the functioning of the Jatiya Sangsad, the veteran politician and late chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee, Suranjit Sengupta, threatened the cancellation of TIB's registration. Based on his draft, the parliament followed up by introducing a provision in the Foreign Donations (Voluntary Activities) Regulation Act 2016 that presently regulates the work of NGOs. By this provision, criticism of the constitution and of all constitutional bodies was criminalised, creating an atmosphere of intimidation not only against TIB, but against NGOs in general and those working in governance and rights.

Ministers and senior officials under both regimes have consistently raised motivated, ridiculous, and unsubstantiated doubts about the funding source of TIB. This is despite the government being the first to know what the source of funds is, thanks to monitoring by the NGO Affairs Bureau. The BNP government had come up with a theory that TIB received funds from corruption-ridden Enron and WorldCom, while the AL government alleged TIB to have received funds from BHP, an Australian mining outfit. However, none of these organisations has ever had any interaction with TIB.

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Our anti-corruption capacity is hostage to power

Under both regimes, TIB has been subjected to targeted harassment by relevant government entities like NGO Affairs Bureau, National Board of Revenue, and also surveillance by agencies.

The question is: after all these years and perpetual bashing of TIB, did the governments of the respective days benefit from their demonising of TIB? Wouldn't they have benefitted more if they'd really studied the TIB mandate, which was to strengthen the capacity of the state and its relevant institutions to fight corruption and improve governance? TIB conducts 10-12 research studies annually on public institutions to examine the extent of corruption in each and suggest relevant reforms. Its flagship National Household Survey, conducted every two years, reveals the extent of bribery in important sectors like health, education, local government, land, law enforcement, income tax, passport service, etc. This particular study contains a treasure of facts which, when delved into deeply, can provide endless ideas to the government on how to ameliorate public suffering. But instead, the reactions of our governments have been knee-jerk, devoid of facts, and threatening, always with an intention of shooting the messenger.

As the AL government begins its fourth consecutive term, we hope that it will have learned from its past mistake of automatically negating all critical reports and opinions. This time around, it will hopefully approach the critical voices, including that of the independent media, in a more mature and fact-based manner rather than treating critics as enemies.

Mahfuz Anam is editor and publisher of The Daily Star.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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