Corruption and irregularities have always been the major barriers to the path of development for Bangladesh. Although there is the ACC in place to strike out swift action against these individuals, the efficiency of this body is questionable.
However, it gives us hope that the government is thinking of going tough against the field-level officials who are veering off their course of work.
A report published in this daily showed that apart from freeing the central administration of corrupt practices, irregularities and misuse of power, the government has also started taking disciplinary actions against field-level dishonest officials and staff involved in such illicit practices.
In view of this the Ministry of Public Administration has brought to books around 2700 upazila and union level officials in the last ten years. This is a great feat of achievement and deserves proper appreciation.
A proper supervisory committee should be formed and
entrusted with the responsibility of identifying other
corrupt officials and bringing them to book
We feel that although such a high number of officials have been punished, there are still many other field officials who are not performing their duties properly and deserve to be punished duly.
In this regard, a proper supervisory committee should be formed and entrusted with the responsibility of identifying other corrupt officials and bringing them to book.
However, there are also allegations against the Ministry of Public Administration that they are not taking actions against the identified errant officials because of lobbying.
In this case it can be surmised that there is decay at the root. So, it is imperative that proper vigilance is to be kept within the ministry itself so that the officials who are overlooking because of lobbies are brought to book first before looking at the other upazila and union level officials.
Above all, a policy should be formulated so that such scopes of lobbying and under the table transactions could be brought to an end once and forever. With the government going for zero tolerance policy against corruption, it is only a matter of time before they face the music.