Bangladesh turns to tainted
tycoons By Farid Ahmed
DHAKA - Bangladesh's military-backed
interim government hopes that a "truth commission"
it plans to set up will give tainted businessmen
an opportunity to revive their businesses and help
put a badly flagging economy back on the rails.
A draft ordinance seeking to establish the
proposed Truth and Accountability Commission is
awaiting approval of the interim government, which
launched an anti-corruption drive over a year ago,
arresting some 200 high-profile businessmen and
politicians, including former prime ministers
Sheikh Hasina Wajed and
Begum Khaleda Zia.
Under the scheme, business people who have
been detained, or who are on the run after being
named as graft suspects, can expect to be
pardoned, Anis ul-Huq, one of the authors of the
draft law, said.
"The government will set
up the truth commission as soon as possible in a
bid to spur economic activities which have slowed
down after the authorities launched their
crackdown," said Huq, a senior Supreme Court
lawyer.
While the government believes the
truth commission will ease the pressure on the
country's economy, the independent Anti-corruption
Commission (ACC) fears that the move may
jeopardize the spirit of the anti-graft drive.
ACC chairman Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, a
former army chief, said this month that while he
was not opposed to the plan, no one should be
given special privileges.
Transparency
International, a Berlin-based corruption watchdog,
has listed Bangladesh among the most corrupt
countries and economists say graft levels are high
enough to have seriously eroded the country's
gross domestic product.
Huq said
corruption was all-pervasive in Bangladesh and
that there were people who were unwillingly drawn
into it. "The move will lessen the burden of the
courts dealing with corruption cases," he said.
One of the main reasons for instituting
the truth commission was to provide an avenue for
businessmen to get back to work, which could
stimulate the economy. "The idea is to offer an
amnesty to top businessmen. Their absence has led
to the collapse of their enterprises and dragged
the whole economy down," said Huq.
With
some 30 leading corporate houses, whose owners are
either in jail on corruption charges or have gone
underground to avoid the anti-corruption dragnet,
uncertainty has been cast on an estimated 300,000
jobs.
The average production capacity of
some of these business houses has decreased by
20-50% over the past few months. Some units have
already announced layoffs, resulting in the loss
of several thousand jobs, while employees at
others have not been paid wages for three to seven
months.
The country's top trade body, the
Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and
Industry, has complained that the drive has caused
a "climate of fear" that has dampened the economy.
This is the first time that Bangladesh's
interim government has acknowledged that the
sweeping reforms, launched in February 2007 and
aimed at cleaning up a notoriously corrupt
political and economic system, have had an adverse
effect on the economy.
The government
launched the crackdown a month after it took power
following the imposition of a state of emergency
and the cancellation of scheduled general
elections in the face of violent street unrest.
Fast-track courts have since sentenced more than a
dozen former ministers, lawmakers and their family
members to between five and 20 years in jail.
Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former World Bank
official who heads the interim government, has
said that Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina were not
eligible to appear before the proposed truth
commission for pardon as they have already been
arraigned on corruption charges and will face
trial.
Huq said the objectives of the
proposed commission are to promote voluntary
disclosure of corrupt practices for lenient
dealing and in a spirit of encouragement that may
lead to expeditious disposal of cases.
The
commission, he said, may refuse to accept a
voluntary disclosure when it feels that it has not
been honest or that the disclosed corruption is
grave in nature affecting the national interest or
economy. A person who has made voluntary
disclosure before the commission shall be
disqualified from holding any public or elected
office under the constitution, namely membership
of parliament, and other local body polls for a
period not exceeding five years.
Professor
Ataur Rahman at the political science department
of Dhaka University said it was important that the
anti-corruption drive, an ongoing process, "should
not be hurried and that the process should remain
sustainable".
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