Badiul Alam Majumdar, secretary of Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik (SHUJAN), a platform for promoting good governance said that persistent corruption will continue in the country, if elected leaders do not have to beg for votes every five years.
He attributed it to the lack of democracy and accountability to the people which is of immense importance in any democratic society.
Badiul made the comment today in a plenary session titled, “Creating a Bottom-up Demand for Good Governance”, in an international conference, “Bay of Bengal Conversation”, organised at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in the capital.
Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) is hosting the regional conference.
Elaborating on the mechanism of corruption, the eminent civil society leader said rampant corruption takes place as a result of nexus among a section of businessmen and section of politician and section of bureaucrats. Lack of accountability, policy of cronyism are the sources of corruption.
In Bangladesh, there has been politicisation of business and vice versa, he observed.
Commenting on the lack of rule of law in the country, he said business is not really governed by the rules of the game in Bangladesh, rather they are governed by the other factors — power factors, and patronage they receive.
“In many countries, after a period of primitive accumulation, there has been demand for rule of law, governing system, transparency and accountability and enforcement of contract. None of those are necessary here. Everything is governed by connections and the power the businesses enjoy,” he added.
Badiul connected the state of affairs to political system, governing system, and deficiency of democracy which arises in two ways. Downward accountability and institutional capacity for check and balance.
“Accountability through the institutions which checks and balances the system don’t work here. Mechanism to ensure transparency and accountability don’t function. We don’t need those things. They are broken down. If we are to really do something about it, we have to make sure that there is rule-based system. And we have basic element of transparency in place,” he emphasised.
“If they don’t have to come to us for votes after every five years, the corruption-based system will continue,” he opined.
He also alleged that there has been a system to make the civil society irrelevant and to make them basically disappear.
