Bitter TruthCorruption By Stalwarts
How much will it affect voting behaviour?
FORMER Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's political secretary Harris Chowdhury made headlines in two successive issues of The Daily Star in the recent past (Harris the fortune-maker, August 15 and Threats, trickery were Harris' tools for ill-gotten gains, August 16). With no known sources of income other than Tk 27.48 lakh he had drawn as pay during the last five years as revealed by task force investigators appointed by the present caretaker government (CTG) he reportedly made a wealth of at least Tk.85 crore in just the same period beginning from 2001. He fled the country after the take over by the present CTG in early 2007, as reported in the newspaper.
As a high profile BNP leader having access to both Hawa Bhaban and PMO Harris Chowdhury reportedly devised innovative ways of luring high officials of different ministries with promotion and in some cases threats of transfer in owning flats and acquiring lands in the posh areas of Dhaka city. He allegedly used to take bribes from different business houses, aspiring nomination seekers, and a large section of government employees for their promotion and transfer. As he enjoyed both Khaleda Zia's and Tarique Rahman's support, everyone including top level government officials and business groups understandably had to yield to his tricks. Consequently his wife, son, daughter, brother, sister, brother's wife and a business partner and government officials happened to be partners of his financial crimes.
Now, when his financial scam has been unearthed people are left groping for definitions to describe the audacious ways of the kingpin of swindle that the investigators say may be worth Tk 100 crore. The man who lorded over perhaps the most audacious bribery binge in the country's history of parliamentary democracy is now, it is learnt, has been passing apparently comfortable time in a luxury house he had purchased in London.
The PMO's main task was supposedly to select the best deal most impartially and expedite national development plan and strategy in the best interest of the country. Rather than being neutral and scrupulous in selecting different bids, the political secretary to the PM for five years almost opened a business house in the PMO, sold jobs and handed over deals to inexperienced business groups in exchange for hefty sum of money.
It is not his criminality that is astonishing but the fact that he compromised the entire political class in the rank and file of the BNP circle. Interestingly, he reportedly operated through 'alternative power house' run by Tarique Rahman which no one in the BNP circle protested then. Everyone there perhaps knew about these scams but none dared to protest. Many in the BNP circle now admit that not reining in his corruption was a political blunder. Ziaul Islam, who was APS to Harris Chowdhury during the latter's 'hey day' was believably the main partner of his corruption. Ziaul, it is learnt amassed huge wealth using his boss's name and is still comfortably out there.
What is evoking almost voyeuristic pleasure is the public spectacle of the amassed riches. People only wonder how could the former PM plead ignorance about the fact that her sycophants and favoured persons in the PMO and different important sectors and ministries built such enormous wealth at the expense of the government. These ugly politicians, in their chronic lust for power and wealth, have reduced the ethics of the statecraft to a squalid strip tease.
Perhaps few countries in the world are more scandal ridden than Bangladesh. Cases of impropriety somehow got leaked in the past and charges were labelled against a political party after it quitted power on an almost routine basis. However in this country reports of such scandals and scams, corruption and misuse of power and grabbing the state wealth with impunity disappear from records and lastly from public memory within a few days. But some of these reports have remarkable staying power because of the importance they assume in the context of the national perspective and continue to haunt public mind long after the acts have been made public. Harris Chowdhury affair, power plant tender scams, swindling big funds in Biman's purchase and graft in purchase of medical equipment in Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and Hospital are some such cases. Funds estimated to be millions of taka have allegedly been siphoned off by persons who were in charge of these sectors jeopardising national interest.
Most encouraging at the moment, it has been revealed that the Task Force formed to probe all these had access to authentic records of malfeasance and the culprits have been identified and brought to book. Undeniably true, it is Harris Chowdhury and his ilks' firm grip on power, and a devilish desire to perpetuate it. True as the Indian High Court judge observed while delivering judgement in Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bribery case in 1997, "Power intoxicates the best hearts as wine the strongest head but then nobody can thrive on corruption. It is the froth on water -- an inch deep and then the mud."
Shockingly true, the Bureau of Anti-corruption in the country in the past days had only acted nothing more than a paper tiger. Reports have it that since Ershad's time the bureau got shackled by an order of the then president that no case of corruption of officials can be taken up without the approval of the chief executive. In the subsequent days after Ershad the parties in the seat of power perhaps reaped the advantage of that bad decree that discriminated between the common masses and the persons in the high state offices. Nothing can be more shocking in a country where political leaders indulge in rhetoric of democratic values, and human rights but hardly try to uphold the values when it comes to practicing them in their work places.
Many revealing reports about the blatant failure of the alliance government during the last five years have perhaps become the unifying issues for the populace in the next election due in December next. All these cases of malfeasance starting from the Power sector to Roads and Highways to Water projects to Industrial expansion, if allowed to go unchallenged, would definitely provoke backlashes in the image of the party that ruled the country for the last five years. These reports of corruption scandals now being made public one after another, have created resentment in the public mind.
Recently, August 4 analysis of the local polls result by 'Sujan', at a seminar in the National Press Club, has brought to the fore the sordid fact that criminalisation of politics still prevails. While the political parties have hardly changed their mindset and did not hesitate to nominate candidates accused of crime and corruption, as the Sujan analysis revealed, the EC fell far short of the stand they had taken in checking out the personal information submitted by the candidates seeking election. The lapses coming to public view in the conduct of the local polls would serve as a warning and forearm the EC in averting any major debacle in the coming parliamentary polls.
Unsurprisingly, the scandals resorted to by the political leaders in the past days, now made public will influence the voters who, in the meantime, have been aware how much their leaders and representatives served their own interests instead of serving the people they represented. In fact, politics in the country became a booming business for many who were out to reap benefit at the cost of the nation.
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