Governance reforms and Anti-Corruption Commission in Bangladesh.

• Author: Parnini, Syeda Naushin
• Position: POLSCI FOCUS - Report

Introduction

The era of globalization witnessed concerted anti-corruption efforts to promote political reforms by reducing the costs of corruption, which has become a major governance issue nowadays. This effort has been particularly directed at developing countries like Bangladesh undergoing economic restructuring and democratic change. In recent years particularly since 1990s, political corruption the misuse of public office or public responsibility for private (personal or sectional) gain--has been an important theme of the neo-liberal policies of adjustment, donor conditionality and governance reforms. Having identified the state as 'the problem', and liberalization and 'good governance' as 'the solution' to that problem, it was inevitable that efforts to eradicate and control the widespread corruption characterizing post-independence Bangladesh got high priority. From the outset, proponents of governance reform i.e. the donors linked political corruption to the explanation of developmental failure, thereby identifying the arguments for democratization and 'good governance' with those for liberalization.

Bangladesh in South Asia inherited an elitist and centralized public administration--first from the British in 1947 when it became part of a united Pakistan, and then from Pakistan in 1971 (Islam, 2005). Attempts to run the public administration and governance system along democratic lines in Bangladesh have been thwarted by a number of military interventions since 1975. Today, Bangladeshi government has embarked on public sector reforms of various kinds, engaging in rhetoric that resonates with global paradigms of 'new public management' (NPM) and 'good governance'. There are different areas of public sector reforms particularly connected to improving governance system called 'governance reforms'. The governance reforms respond to different challenges so are they motivated by different concerns and results in different outcomes. Thus, the 'old' public administration regime has largely coexisted with the 'new' public management approaches and tools. Apart from economic and fiscal pressures from western donor agencies, there have also been domestic political changes, including regime changes, which have resulted in a new articulation of governance, and have helped shape the new institutional arrangements. The influence of national administrative traditions, such as the British colonial legacy, should also be taken into account in the context of Bangladesh.

The weak bargaining position of Bangladesh, where debt, poverty and underdevelopment make the country dependent on international aid donors, has led to a variety of direct, unsubtle pressures to force the state to undertake 'governance' reforms. While many of these measures address important problems undermining development, the donors sometimes have deficiency of proper understanding of the nature of corruption as a problem in two important ways. First, the donors frequently prescribe rules and norms of proper public behavior, developed for and within the Western world regardless of the recipient country's unique conditions. And, second, they threaten the autonomy of the recipient government to make decisions and draw long-term plans.

There has been a recent trend for Bangladeshi government since early 2002 to establish anti-corruption commission--distinct, national agencies charged with combating corruption. The donors have all promoted the establishment of such bodies, claiming that they form an integral part of a country's "national integrity system." The recent United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCA) also makes specific provision for their establishment. However, the experience of anticorruption commission is mixed, and it often attracts criticism for being ineffective and a waste of resources. The question remains whether this agency represents a genuine commitment on the part of a government in its anti-corruption strategy, or whether they are merely a fagade, established to simply placate the international donors. Thus, this paper explores the way in which corruption has been understood in the 'governance' agenda and the efforts that have been made to control it by improving institutional performance and policing for greater transparency and accountability in Bangladesh. Therefore, the formation and role of the ACC will also be critically discussed in this paper.

Literature Review

Despite the aid regime's recent shift to new areas of interest in Bangladesh, the impact of the new governance agenda through anti-corruption efforts on the political economy of Bangladesh have hardly been subjected to any comprehensive analysis. The publication of two landmark books on foreign aid pertaining to Bangladesh should be noted here: The Crisis of External Dependence: the Political Economy of Foreign Aid to Bangladesh (Sobhan, 1982) and Revisiting Foreign Aid: An Independent Review of Bangladesh's Development (Sobhan, 2003), both the books are written by Professor Rehman Sobhan. The publication of a well-known book in Bangladesh titled 'Towards Good Governance in Bangladesh: Fifty Unpleasant Essays' written by Kamal Siddiqui (1996) should also be mentioned here. These books mostly deal with internal dynamics of several general issues such government, politics as well as civil bureaucracy and problems of particular organizations and sectors, in order to ensure good governance.

There is still the need for a fresh look at novel issues with regard to the governance reforms through anti-corruption efforts by establishing ACC as a new approach of development aid towards recipient countries like Bangladesh. It is an appropriate time for both the foreign aid donors and recipients to take stock of the foreign aid experience and anti-corruption measures. The Centre for Policy Dialogue published an independent review of Bangladesh's development in 2003 (Sobhan, 2003), which also captured the issue of foreign aid and corruption issues in Bangladesh.

Due to rampant corruption in many institutions and many forms of economic transactions, the socio-economic, political and administrative development of Bangladesh has been severely impeded. This has been noted by Zafarullah and Huque (2001), who have identified several problem areas in governance and public management in South Asian Countries like Bangladesh. They include (i) bureaucratic dominance (ii) generalist specialist conflicts (iii) fragmented civil service structures (iv) conflict between merit and equity (v) tension between professionalism and political patronage (vi) a widening gap between the people and the administration and (vii) problems of administrative ethics. Aminuzzaman (1996) also said that aspirations to create a transparent and sound system of governance have suffered numerous setbacks in Bangladesh brought about by administrative corruption, the centralized and elitist character of the civil service, a lack of strong leadership and political commitment, conservatism and bureaucratic resistance, and so on. However, this work does not capture the issue of the governance reforms prescribed by donors and anti-corruption measures of the Government of Bangladesh.

In contrast to previous studies, this work tries to explore a direct link between 'governance reforms' and anti-corruption measures by referring to Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in Bangladesh; it examines anti-corruption efforts in Bangladesh and the role of ACC within the overarching framework of 'good governance', while at the same time criticizing the western notion of governance reform as a 'new approach' of development aid. Governance reform in Bangladesh is being advocated and defined by the donors, which has great implications for public policy making in the country. Bangladesh's current anticorruption measures through ACC, as prescribed by the donors, are not always linked to actual local demand and necessity arising from the creation of the Bangladeshi state in 1971. Therefore, this study argues that the demand for anticorruption efforts should come from domestic necessity as dictated by the unique circumstances found in Bangladesh, rather than being imposed by the donors as a component of the governance agenda based on new-liberal ideologies and NPM principles.

Research Methodology

This study employed qualitative techniques as its research methodology. However, some findings are presented in quantitative form. A descriptive and exploratory case study approach was utilized for this policy study because the researcher had little control over the events and the focus was on contemporary phenomena (Yin, 1994). The questions were generally of a "how, what or why" nature about anti-corruption drive. This work is based on both primary and secondary documents. A field survey conducted both at the national and local levels in Bangladesh between August and December 2009. At the central level, 91 persons were interviewed from the government, donor agencies, academia, media and civil society. Within the ACC some officials were interviewed. Staffs and members of The Transparency International in Bangladesh were also interviewed. In addition to this, other professionals and people were interviewed in order to find out the stakeholders' perceptions regarding anti-corruption drive and effectiveness of the ACC in Bangladesh. Stakeholders were selected on the basis of random sampling. The method of data collection was face to face interviews of officials based on guidelines of the open ended questions. In the case of most of the stakeholders, a survey was conducted on the basis of a close ended questionnaire. Therefore, primary data were collected through a structured interview using both closed and open-ended questions. Secondary data were gathered from various published documents (i.e., articles, books, study reports, etc.) and from the internet.

When the first round of unstructured interviews began, the author asked the...