Tackling corruption electronically
OF late, involvement of ruling party functionaries in the manipulation of tenders for governmental projects has become an embarrassment for the government. More so as the party activists are not listening to the advice of the prime minister that they should refrain from doing so.
In addition, political muscle allegedly being used by the ruling party leaders, including some members of parliament, in land grabbing and other illegal acts is clouding the good deeds of the government.
These acts have goaded the government to go for e-tendering from next June. If this materialises then some of the corruption enveloping all sectors of the economy would be contained.
Tender manipulation and consequent violence can be categorised as corruption if we define the term as:
-Violation of social rules and norms;
-Secret exchange among political, social and economic markets;
-Illegal access given to individuals and groups to the process of political and administrative decision making; and
-Resultant tangible benefits to the parties involved in the transaction.
By any definition, corruption is illegal and, in the first instance, results from collusion between politicians and the elite. The first party abuses public position of trust for private gains of both parties.
During the BNP-Jamaat rule, two country directors of the World Bank in Bangladesh were candid enough to publicly point out collusive theft by the employees in the power sector and the consumers; port inefficiencies costing over $1 billion a year; governance problems and inefficiency in the banking sector, slowing down GDP growth over one percent per annum; Tk.30-40 cores of public procurement lost every year due to corruption.
Giving a detailed analysis one country director concluded that Bangladesh was losing 2-3% GDP growth a year due to corruption. His successor was more circumspect, yet no less pointed in her assessment of then governmental inadequacies holding up growth rate of our economy.
With the Third Wave of democracy in the former Eastern Europe and Bush Junior's ill-conceived promotion of democracy irrespective of different political, economic and socio-cultural norms existing in different countries, the then US administration was convinced that the promotion of autocracy dictated by the Cold War was faulty. Besides, some political scientists and economists were doubtful that all nations were ready to embrace democracy as the concept is generally understood.
Gavin Kiching was pessimistic about poor societies producing sustainable democratic life essential for the creation of socialist democracy.
So are Francis Fukuyama, Joseph Stiglitz, Milton Friedman and some others. Ian Christie has been more outspoken. He writes: "Democracy poses huge problems for sustainable development. In the advanced liberal capitalist states, democracy is tightly coupled to the promise of economic growth, ever-rising consumption and individual freedom. Democracy in such states now entrenches the interests of the affluent majority and well-funded lobbies in the political system. Representative democracies have become sclerotic and there is a widespread problem of public trust and apathy in the OECD world. Politicians cannot challenge vested consumer and producer interests for fear of losing votes, lobby and media support, and associated funding. This makes democracies incapable of mobilising citizens to tackle collective action problems on a big scale -- above all, climate disruption and the need for deep emission cuts."
Neo-con Joshua Muravchik criticised President Obama for scaling down George W. Bush's missionary zeal for democratisation of all countries in his discussion with the editors of the Washington Post on the eve of his inauguration that democracy was less important than "freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
If people aren't secure, if people are starving, then elections may or may not address those issues, but they are not a perfect overlay." But developing countries in general, and Bangladesh is no exception, invariably opt for democracy despite imperfection in their practice.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has predicted that another global financial crisis is inevitable due to "unquenchable capability of human beings when confronted with a long period of prosperity to presume that it will continue." Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps feels that the massive debt incurred by the US to halt recession will thwart growth for decades and will also fuel inflation.
Our fate is inextricably linked with the global economy, particularly with that of the West. But our government, surprisingly, is giving Tk.1,800 crores stimulus to our exporters. "Stimulus" has become a buzz-word among BMW/ Mercedes Benz driving entrepreneurs, while the common people cannot make both ends meet. If Phelps and Greenspan prove to be correct then this "stimulus" will not only increase in size this fiscal but may have no end.
It is not clear how much of the stimulus being promised to the rich and the powerful, who have denied the government its due taxes and have personalised the gains and socialised the losses, will benefit the farmers and labourers who constitute the back bone of the economy. The government may wish to focus on the agricultural sector that provides 30% of the GDP, and manpower training to send skilled and semi-skilled manpower abroad, and give easy loans to SMEs to create domestic demand -- thus giving real meaning to the promises made to the people before the election.
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