From 2001 until 2005, Bangladesh was ranked the most corrupt country in the world by Transparency International (TI) as found in the annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Although the status started to improve after 2005, the country still lies at the bottom of the list. Three other indicators, the World Bank’s Control of Corruption, the World Economic Forum’s Assessment of Irregular Payments and Bribes, and the Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index (Public Service), projected a similar picture.
In Bangladesh, citizens must travel long distances, often multiple times, incur high costs and endure considerable delays and hassle to access public services (PMO Bangladesh). In a recent study titled the ‘Corruption in Service Sectors: National Household Survey 2021’ by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), showed that almost 71 percent of homes had to endure corruption while getting services in that year, which is 4.3 percent more than that of four years ago. 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. According to the report, 74.4 percent of homes seeking services from law enforcement agencies experienced corruption last year compared to 72.5 percent in the 2017 report.
The households had to pay an estimated Tk10,830 crore in bribes, which is 0.4 percent of the country’s GDP and 5.9 percent of the revised budget of the 2020-2021 fiscal year. On average, each home had to pay Tk6,636 in bribes to get services. The study was conducted on 15,454 homes nationwide. The survey 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. Most graft-ridden service sectors were the police and its different wings, the Department of Immigration and Passports, and the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority.
The overall service sector graft situation is alarming, and corruption has taken an institutional form. It is usual that any sort of crime will turn institutional and spread its wings in the absence of trial and punishment. It is possible to control corruption effectively by ensuring digitalisation of services along with ensuring accountability and punishment of the culprits, the report 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
Earlier in a study in 2014- 2017, attempting to explore the possibility of delivering corruption-free public services to citizens using a social accountability tool, namely, public hearing. The ACC organises public hearings in collaboration with its Corruption Prevention Committees at the district and upazila levels, and Transparency International Bangladesh and development partners (World Bank and JICA). The written complaints were raised by 1440 citizens in 72 public hearings conducted by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). These public hearings were organised in 61 upazilas of 51 districts and 5 offices in the Dhaka Metropolitan area, 1 in the Chittagong Metropolitan area and 5 follow-up public. Moreover, the study uses the output of 14 workshops conducted by the ACC in different districts during the period from November 2015 to November 2017. 840 government officials, the members of Corruption Prevention Committees, NGOs and civil society participated in the workshops. The outcome of the survey focuses on the existing corrupt public service delivery, reasons for corruption, case studies and the effectiveness of public hearings. Corrupt Public Service Delivery study finds that every public office is vulnerable to corruption, system hardly works for public service delivery, systemic corruption prevails in public offices, public officials generally work for personal interest rather than public interest, service is a mercy, land management, health, and rural electrification appear to be the most corrupt departments, and multiple visits to government offices.
The reasons for corruption found from the study show a lengthy and cumbersome process of public service delivery, many intermediaries, controls instead of facilitation, heavy reliance on manual system, lack of incentives, excessive discretionary authority, and an absence of exemplary punishment for corrupt practices.
These public hearings attempt to fulfill these key conditions for bringing accountability in public offices through citizen engagement. Based on the feedback received from the public hearings, the ACC is supposed to hold a dialogue with government organisations for improving service delivery through business process reengineering. The three key conditions for bringing accountability in public offices include transparency, which makes information available, publicity, which makes information accessible and accountability, which makes information actionable. Unfortunately, the corruption has gone up in due course until today.
ACC is an ‘independent’ commission. As per Section 17(k) of the Anti-Corruption Commission Act, 2004, the ACC has adopted the public hearing as a strategy for inclusive governance to monitor corruption-free public service delivery to citizens. Interestingly, the Cabinet Division issued a circular on 5th of June 2014 authorising the Anti-Corruption Commission to conduct public hearings for improving integrity and preventing corruption in public offices.
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 in Bangladesh. One of the views that the crime and punishment model by Gary Becker (1968) states that self-interested public officials seek out or accept bribes so long as the expected gains from corruption exceed the expected costs (detection and punishment) associated with corrupt acts.
According to this view, corruption could be mitigated by reducing the number of transactions over which public officials have discretion; reducing the scope of gains from each transaction; increasing the probability of detection; and increasing the penalty for corrupt activities. Klitgaard (1988) restates this model to emphasise the unrestrained monopoly power and discretionary authority of government officials. According to him, corruption equals monopoly plus discretion minus accountability.
The writer is the CEO, Bangla Chemical & Legal Economist. E-mail: [email protected]
