Editorial
Eradicating petty corruption
A social movement needed
There is general agreement that the anti-corruption drive launched by the caretaker government has convinced people that no one is above the law. While that is a big stride we are nonetheless confronted with the problem of petty corruption that affects our life on a daily basis. This is the type of corruption that citizens encounter in their dealings with police stations, land registration offices, education department and Union Parishad personnel. There are also the very regrettable instances of aged, superannuated government employees having to gratify petty officials in their efforts to have their pensions settled and drawn. The list can be endless.
It takes two hands to clap i.e. those who take bribe and give bribe make for incidence of bribery and are therefore equally to blame. We had grown a certain tolerance for bribe that must now be rolled back at the societal level to zero tolerance. Now occasionally people who are approached for graft seek law enforcers' help to catch the dishonest. This is a good sign that needs to be built up on.
Some social awareness against corruption has grown due to ongoing efforts of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB). That needs to be taken forward to set in motion a social crusade against all forms of corruption. It is time for an anti-corruption movement that will involve the participation of people at the various professional, individual and social levels. It is a job that can be greatly assisted by the media, both electronic and print. At educational institutions and government and social organisations, the message of corruption being a vice must be hammered into the consciousness.
In the past, people looked with revulsion on the corrupt and would not have their children marry into families with questionable reputations. The corrupt need to be socially ostracised again. To eradicate corruption, it is a whole mindset that calls for change. What also needs to change is something basic: people who commit petty corruption are those who are poorly paid, which is of course no excuse for their behaviour. But perhaps the time has come for the government, for all of us, to study pay structures, the meagre and even miserable salaries which breed corruption and then deal with the problem.
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