Whose fault is it anyway?

One would assume that a job entails its holder to carry out his responsibilities ethically and with sincerity, especially when it comes to providing a public service. Not so, judging from the comments of the director general of the passport department, on the recently published TIB National Household Survey Report. "After taking charge this year, I have motivated my officials who are working hard day and night to serve people. If the TIB now says the passport office is the most corrupt, how will these officials continue to provide services?" he said.

Does he mean that now that the findings of TIB's survey have been published, passport office officials can no longer work? The finger-in-ear denials following the publication of the survey imply that TIB is engaging in malicious slander, that the reputation of the passport office was tarnished overnight. But who among us have not experienced the reality: waiting in line for hours, lack of co-operation from the officials, the harassments, the negligence, the intermediaries, and the delays. Of course, all those can be avoided if you are willing to spend a little more or have acquaintances on the inside.

"The Corruption in Service Sectors: National Household Survey 2015" indicates that the highest percentage of households responded that they had to face some form of corruption from the passport offices. The director general protested saying that the survey gives a picture of the previous year and that the TIB officials had not visited the passport office before publishing the report. It seems he has some misunderstanding about what a household survey entails.

When 77.7 percent of the 15,446 households surveyed from across the country, between November and December, claim to have been victims of corruption, it seems odd that the director general can so easily disregard such complaints. The TIB report says that the survey, "is expected to assist in taking forward the anti-corruption commitments and activities of the ruling party and their alliances. Besides, the findings of this survey will assist in taking appropriate measures according to the nature of corruption in different service sectors."

Instead we see vehement denials. The number of reports by major newspapers and TV channels over the years clearly highlight the extent of corruption in the passport office. And the survey does give a picture of what the citizens feel towards it. This could have been taken as an indicator of how to go about the reforms required by the new director general. But that might be too much to ask—when his officials can no longer "provide service."

I take only one example out of the TIB survey report, but this is representative of many service providing offices and officials. It is not even surprising at this point to hear that after passport, the highest percentage of corruption were in the law enforcement and  education sectors.

On a cursory read, the TIB report seems to be fair in its representation: "corruption has decreased in land administration, judicial services, health, banking, NGO and other sectors" while it "increased in local government, electricity and insurance." Given the data represents a big cross-section of the population, from 64 districts and the Dhaka and Chittagong City Corporations, it certainly seems like a good indicator of which areas the administration might need to focus on to ease and erase the corruption faced by the people. Yet, like countless incidents before, there's only denial, not that it is convincing any one.

At this point, it seems almost naïve to ask, whether there's any intention of tackling corruption at all. Reports and surveys may be prepared, but what good are those, if one refuses to even acknowledge the corroding problem that the findings unveil?

To be fair, I have not been to the passport office since the new director general took over. But the last time I was there, officials acted as if they were doing me a favour by merely pointing to which door or stairway to take, which counter to go to, or which line to stand it;, this seems to be the general attitude even now. The officials are not entitled to provide the service, and are merely bestowing their benevolence when they do. In that case, the survey is superfluous, maybe it's us who are at fault for not being worthy, or TIB for publishing such material and making the officials too demoralised to work anymore.

The writer is a member of the editorial team, The Daily Star.