Finance minister's media tirade

The dynamic, public-spirited and professionally committed independent media for which Bangladesh is respected all around the world is being ironically portrayed as the sole villain earning a bad name for the country. Placing all the blame at the doorstep of the media for 'the most corrupt' image of the country is ludicrous. Does the media create news or report news? Any medium of information manufacturing news will be discarded by the public with disdain, the minister should have known better.

All of this is stifling public access to information about the corruption in government, and that too in the extraordinary situation where the opposition has had no effective voice in parliament, partly due to the walkover it gave to the government, and no less owing to the latter's denial of space to the opposition.

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The minister doesn't have to look far to find out who are maligning Bangladesh; a close look in his own vicinity will reveal the names, if he cares to take one.

We strongly decry Saifur Rahman's attack on the media, his comments being totally unjustified and thoroughly misplaced. What's dreadful about this mindset is that it could lead to measures for media control which are occasionally vaguely hinted at, as something of a ruse.

The bankruptcy of his position is revealed by the fact that there was a BNP gloating over the first TIB report that perceived Bangladesh as the topmost corrupt country because it came out during the AL rule. A negative report is good and authentic if it covered AL rule but it is bad and unacceptable if it's released when BNP is in power. Without taking a single corrective step during the last three years of the four years on a trot we have been perceived at the top of the corruption pyramid, the government, if Saifur Rahman is to be believed, is taking refuge in so-called media failings in the seeming absence of any other sanctuary.

What can the government tell the people in self-defence when the promised anti-corruption commission, Ombudsman's office and separation of the judiciary from the executive have remained on the wish, or shall we say rhetoric, list of the government for the last three years.

The final demolition of Saifur Rahman's blame-the-media theory comes from TIB's clarification that the graft report was based on data received from different global agencies.

Saifur Rahman's remarks coming as they do from one who has had an impressive global exposure, are unbelievable.