When the effective breakdown of the AL government in August 2024 wept across the country, the relief was not only about changing faces at the highest level. It was the rebirth of institutions. We have seen our main regulatory watchdogs turned into political assassins, reduced to costly rubber-stamping agencies or systematically declawed within more than ten years. Back to May 2026. We are around three months into newly elected, Tarique Rahman-led BNP government.
But lofty declarations of structural transformation seem to have already got abandoned in the rain. Today, the Holy Trinity of Citizen Accountability-the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), the Human Rights Commission (NHRC), and the Information Commission-are not only asleep, they are effectively leaderless, law-torn totally.
If you’re curious as to what a governance vacuum means in practice, just take these figures: 800 pending complaints lodged with the Information Commission and a terrifying 150 new corruption allegations arriving at the bare-toothed ACC every day. We’ve not just put our watchdogs on the sidelines; we’ve thrown them into the kennel so the burglars can have a nice tour of the house.
What makes this gridlock most frustrating is that it appears to be self-produced. A lot of serious heavy lifting was done in the short tenure of the interim government. They drafted and passed a number of reform ordinances that would give the NHRC, the ACC, and the Information Commission actual teeth and structural independence. Then the new parliament arrived. Yet again, through some strange legislative fervour, the first legislative act of a BNP government was to utterly abolish those very reform ordinances. The reasoning?
Anyone in parliament has got to be an autonomous legislative authority, right? The truth? In abolishing the ordinances without setting up new ones the government has kicked out the strategic furniture.
Now consider the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which was sworn in on 6 February by a promising five-member commission given the stamp of approval on that day by retired High Court Judge Justice Mainul Islam Chowdhury. Almost immediately parliament killed the amending ordinance and the entire commission resigned. We saw a similar exit by the leadership of the ACC on 3 March.
This produces a comic, if tragic, additional game of bureaucratic hot potatoes. On the questions of the position of reconstitution of the ACC, the Additional Secretary of the Cabinet Division revealed an outstanding display of administrative amnesia:
“I can’t recall which one it is at the moment; I will inform you at the time I remember.”
As the politicians ‘recollect’ their files, consequences on ground are piling up.
In the times where social media feeds act as inhospitable cauldrons of rumours and deepfakes and hyper-partisan venom. But with the Information Commission frozen, the institutional route to truth is blocked.
When citizens are precluded by law from demanding that the state release files then a culture of paranoia begins to flourish. By refusing to reopen the commission the state isn’t just covering its own tracks, it raises the hysteria that could topple our new fragile democracy.
Even when we have packed these commissions to the gills, we have to face a far more dismal legacy. It is an open secret that the ACC has been plagued with rotten elements internally. During the past 17 years, 244 of its own officials have been taken to task for taking bribes, gangsterism and shielding the economic criminals, that they have been hired to combat. Yet only 34 were actually sacked. The balance enjoyed comfortable corporate severance packages – trumped up forced retirements, classy demotions and discreet reinstatements.
For many years the organisation has worked more as an Anti-Graft body than an Active Corruption Collaborator – chilling out in a ‘corruption triangle’, where crooked traders, corrupt officials and power-hungry politicians danced around a bag of cash, with absolute impunity. This historical rot is the very reason that today’s paralysis is so problematic.
We cannot afford to swap one ruling kleptocracy for another administrative indifference. The only way the BNP government can truly justify a new populist mandate disenfranchising itself from spectres of yesteryear is by ceasing to hold these sorts of regulators as existential threats.
But true leadership is all about overcoming that fear. The path forward doesn’t require rewriting the wheel:
Immediately appoint leaders: No more delays by endless committee nominations. Rebuild the ACC, NHRC and Information Commission from scratch with the most independent, non-partisan experts.
Criminal prosecution over bureaucratic slaps: Corrupted ACC and NHRC officials who are paid bribes, or who derail investigations, of course, have a place in an open courtroom not in cushy early retirement.
Financial and structural inoculation: Extravagantly compensate these investigators, secure their tenures through legal safeguards and bring back internal monitor boards to police these policemen.
If these state agencies remain frozen in snowdrifts, then the people will do their own thinking.
An independent institution uncontrolled by a leader is no fluke. It’s a decision. It’s time for our government to choose whether it wants real accountability or titillation. We didn’t risk the streets in 2024 to see the new watchmen imposed on the old rats. Our patience is running thin, and the clock is ticking.
The writer is the Senior Assistant Editor, TIMES of Bangladesh. E-mail: [email protected]
