June 09, 2000

Editorial

For an Independent Anti-corruption Authority

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has sprung a surprise by equating independent anti-corruption commission with the office of the Ombudsman. Her exact words on the floor of the House on Tuesday were, "the country may not need an independent anti-corruption commission if the Ombudsman (for which a law was enacted as early as in 1980) is appointed." Why must that be so we do not have the faintest of idea, except for the fact that the perceived overlapping nature of the two bodies is something of an expedient fiction the Prime Minister has fallen for.

The office of Ombudsman, both by definition and the terms of reference as embodied in the Constitution, is certainly no substitute for an independent anti-corruption commission one sees elsewhere, maybe under a different name. The former is an institution of the last resort for getting public petitions heard, probes made into grievances and injustice sought to be mitigated by recommending remedial actions to relevant authorities. Ombudsman's office does not work as a super-judge nor as an adjudicator as understood in legal parlance. To all intents and purposes, it is a conscience-keeper of the state, a clearing-house, as it were, of public grievances imbued with a sense of mission to ensure enjoyment of basic rights by the people in an ambience of rule of law, justice and fairplay.

So, an Ombudsman's office is on a high ethical pedestal addressing the welfare concerns of the people in their various dimensions. That's why we see in some European countries not just a single office of Ombudsman, rather there are Ombudsmen attached to various aspects of governance and civic life.

By contrast, an independent anti-corruption commission means an administrative apparatus with a writ to investigate allegations (or well-founded ill-reputation) of corruption against people in high places as well as others in an unfettered and impartial way to get at the bottom of things. The CBI in India, with the powers vested in it to conduct scooping and tentacular investigations anywhere in India and even overseas in hot pursuit of a corruption case, has made a name for itself. For all practical purposes the CBI is not an appendage to the PMO in New Delhi. That is the crux of the matter in probing corruption as a manifestation of political criminality across the board.

Successive governments in Bangladesh have in a tell-tale fashion skirted the notion of having an independent commission against corruption. When the BNP had been at the helms it ordained that the anti-corruption bureau could not take up any case without the prior permission of the Prime Minister's secretariat. For a time the bureau was placed under the Cabinet Division. At present though, it has reverted back to the PMO.

One can expect two things to happen from such an obsessive insistence on keeping the bureau of anti-corruption under the Prime Minister's Office: first, corruption which is basically the handmaiden of ruling party functionaries - in cohorts with public officials - will be indirectly encouraged. Secondly, such an anti-corruption bureau can be used as a weapon against political opponents with alternating frequencies.

Given our political culture, an Ombudsman's office cannot stave off corruption in high places. Furthermore, corruption is institutionally too entrenched to be neutralised by an Ombudsman. In one word, the government needs to set up an independent commission as a proof of its bona fides that it really wants corruption to be contained.