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Corruption in its all shades
and colour is the illegal tool of accumulating
illegal wealth depriving by other person and
which results in inequality and social
injustice. Corruption destroys social order,
rule of law and all good governance efforts.
Corruption and the corrupts are the enemies of
the people and the society in any country. That
is why fighting corruption and installing
honesty is a pre condition for good governance
for ensuring human rights, human dignity,
equality and social justice and better business
environment. Holding the first position in
Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for five
consecutive years has tarnished the image of
Bangladesh, and in such a situation the majority
of the citizens did not know what to do and how
to start a fight against this man-made tool of
exploitation. Under the previous oppressive
corrupt governance and social system conscious
citizens attempted to raise voice against this
evil through the media or different civil
societies organisations. Today everybody
including the Chairman Anti-Corruption
Commission emphasises on the reality of
designing a collaborative strategy to limit this
evil call corruption. The following non-violent
silent strategies may be used to curve down
corrupt practices in every sector of Bangladesh.
Naming and shaming strategy: Naming and
shaming can be a very effective tactic to
eradicate corruption in any country. Even in
developing countries, where corruption is
accepted as a necessary evil, naming and shaming
tactic has been effective in recent years. In
India, high profile cases uncovered and actively
reported by the citizen action group have led to
disgraceful dismissals of high level government
officials and even criminal action against
public figures. No such example has been set by
the political governments in Bangladesh in the
past. But citizen action groups or the media
demonstrated ability to generate outrage among
the public that can be channelled productively
to control and eradicate corruption. Nobody can
undermine the role and power of media in the
society for establishing good governance.
Creating awareness strategy among the
Stakeholders: Everyday policymakers,
professionals, business leaders, sociologist,
economists and others independently generate
amazing number of ideas and thoughts. The
reasons that these ideas do not come to fruition
is because like-minded reformers do seldom
collaborate to bring changes. There are a lot of
international and domestic organisations, NGOs,
government agencies, opinion leaders and others
- that are all individually working on tackling
corruption in a piece-meal fashion. A more
comprehensive approach to address corruption
will be more fruitful. Corruption can be
marginalised if not eliminated if all
stakeholders work together in a coordinated
manner against corruption.
Ideas and
thoughts are ineffective if not put to action.
Unless what is thought is acted upon, such
thought has no value. What is important is the
commitment of all the citizens - leaders of
respective fields- to take on the challenge of
ending corruption and to do one's own part to
address it in a collaborative manner.
Corruption, as in all affairs in society may be
viewed from two sides: a demand side and a
supply side. The demand side can only be curbed
by reforms of institutions and strengthened
enforcement of law by a transparent judiciary.
As the owner of the country all citizens are
affected by corruption everyday, and as such
they should insist reforms of the legislative,
executive and judicial organ of the country. The
stakeholders of a corruption free society have
to get united to raise their voice against
corruption to curb the supply side. Thus the
citizens will have to participate in the battle
against corruption and only moral support to the
Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) is not enough
to eliminate corruption.
Creating awareness
among the Civil Society: Citizens face potential
corruption practically at every level and every
sector of life. It could be the local police,
TNT, electricity and water authorities,
Municipal Corporation or the tax department.
Government alone cannot succeed in combating
corruption without the active participation of
civil society and citizen action groups. Civil
society is in the best position to articulate
the grievances of the citizen and highlight
priorities of action on corruption to
governments. Civil society can serve many
important roles - as observer, critic, analyst,
campaigner, or protestor. It can create public
awareness against corruption and mobilise
citizens to fight against corruption in ways
that governments cannot. Civil society can also
play a strong role to organise campaigns against
corruption. Centre for Good Governance is
working with many civic organisations for
capacity building of such organisation.
Creating awareness among Chambers and Trade
Bodies: As Civil society organisations,
Citizens' action groups, NGOs, media, and
Chambers - can play the largest role in
improving governance both in the public and
private sector. Similarly Chambers can be more
active by organising seminars, workshops, round
tables to generate awareness against corruption
and unethical business practice. Chambers can
establish anti corruption cell headed by a vice
president with adequate funds to establish
liaison with media, anti corruption commission
(ACC) and other government agencies to combat
corruption and protect its members from
extortion and corrupt claims. Mega chambers
should formulate code of conduct for their
members and put pressure on the members for
compliance. Awareness regarding code of conduct
for members of chambers would have trickle down
effect on smaller business enterprises and so
on.
Creating awareness among Private
Sector: The private sector can play a more
active role in rooting out the supply side of
corruption. It is painful that most businessman
and citizens looks at corrupt practice as a
system. According to unofficial estimates many
business house just account for it on their
books - as much as 10 per cent - adding to the
cost of doing business. Business leaders
as well as the government should take
initiatives so that local and foreign investors
can set up business enterprise and function in
Bangladesh without resorting to corruption and
extortion. After 1/11/07 the present Anti
Corruption Commission (ACC) visibly started a
crusade against corruption which may be looked
upon as a proactive move towards corruption free
governance. For eradicating corruption the
private sector must emphasise on internal
controls and auditing mechanisms. Corporate
bodies and business houses needs to set clear
and enforceable policies against corrupt or
unethical business practices. Business house
need to periodically train middle and senior
management on business ethics to ensure that
standards are institutionalised throughout the
organisation. Business houses should change
their mindset to prefer managers having
comprehensive business education with emphasis
on ethics. Any business manager cannot afford to
be unaware of global ethical standards for doing
business in Bangladesh.
Conclusion: In a
developing country for good governance the fight
against corruption is not easy. Bangladesh
recently started a drive against corruption. It
is expected the present caretaker government,
patriotic citizens and other stakeholders will
be able to address this most difficult challenge
- fighting corruption. Corruption is a
tremendous deterrent to good governance and
development, and its burden falls heaviest on
the shoulders of the poor people. An effective
Anti-Corruption Commission - with strong
political backing, can become a credible tool to
deter corruption. All concerned should help the
ACC to be fully operative. If Bangladesh wants
to establish corruption free business friendly
environment, wants to become a country free of
poverty and economically strong, where every
citizen will enjoy his or her rights and a
better quality life, ending corruption is the
most important need. It is the responsibility of
every stakeholder to respond to this need
towards corruption free, transparent,
participatory good governance ensuring equity
and social justice. Nobody will deny that, in
Bangladesh the past governance mechanism was
less then satisfactory. Many issues and problems
were the barriers to ensure good governance,
equity and social justice. Weak watchdog
institutions, corruption, political interference
in administration, nepotism, misuse of power,
absence of rule of law, non-accountable and
non-transparent governments, etcetera are the
common features of our governance which needs to
be addressed on urgent
basis.
(The writer is an
Associate Professor of marketing at the
University of Chittagong, Bangladesh and
Chairman, Centre for Good Governance. His recent
administrative post includes vice rector IIBT
(Premier University), Director, Sadharon Bima
Corp., Treasurer. USTC (SWC), Representative of
the President, USTC. He has lectured widely at
various business schools including University of
Science and Technology, Open University, ABAC
Thailand and also in Singapore. Rotarian Syed
Ahsanul Alam is a well known Academician,
Institution Building Personality and Activist
for Good Governance.
E-mail:centerforgoodgovernance@yahoo.com,)
Web-site:
http://www.goodgovernancebd.org/ |