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Transparency International (TI), the global watchdog on corruption, which is concerned mainly with dishonest practices like bribery, fraudulence, etc., taking place in the public sector alone, but not in the private sector or at the individual level, cannot for obvious reasons provide a complete picture of corruption in a country. Even so, as usual, TI along with the records of 180 other countries, has come up with 2024's perceived corruption index (CPI) for Bangladesh through analyzing the data on corruption between November of 2021 and September 2024. The report says that with a score of 23 out of 100, Bangladesh has clearly slipped by one point from its position on the corruption scale in the previous year (2023) at 24. What is more, compared to the last 13 years' record so far as corruption is concerned, Bangladesh has performed the worst in 2024. And if one looks at the international score card, the country lies far below the global average score of 43 and is placed 14th among the world's most corrupt countries. Regionally, that is, in South Asia, its score is the second lowest just above Afghanistan, but way behind Bhutan, whose score is 72.
From just the relative position that Bangladesh has been shown to occupy among other corrupt countries, one can hardly comprehend what actually happened in Bangladesh under the previous authoritarian regime in public sector of the economy. To be frank, the word corruption is rather a benign one to describe the scale of looting of the state exchequer including the financial institutions both in the public and the private sectors that had taken place in the country over the period covered by the TI's survey and research on Bangladesh regarding corruption. If there was a similar scale to fathom corrupt practices taking place also in the private sector or at the individual level in Bangladesh during the period under review by TI, one could have a more in-depth view of the depredations of a nation suffered at the hands of its own government. Perhaps, the corruption watchdog will have to coin a new term to describe the enormity of it all.
Interestingly, the Bangladesh chapter of TI, or TIB, in its observation on the dubious stance of the previous regime on corruption noted that the latter had talked a lot about fighting corruption, but in reality it rather fostered, supported and even participated in corruption. In fact, it is this active participation in corruption by the head of the previous government and her henchmen in the party and the administration that made this insidious social evil (corruption) all-embracing. Obviously, it paints a disappointing picture about the fight against corruption as was the case in Bangladesh as pointed out by the head of TIB while presenting the report before the press on Tuesday (February 11). Unsurprisingly, Bangladesh has been classified by the TI as a country afflicted with what it said, "a serious corruption problem' along with 101 falling in the same category. If anything, such categorization provides at least an international recognition of what Bangladesh experienced during the previous regime in the area of public sector corruption. At this point, TIB's observation that despite Bangladesh's poor score on CPI index, it is better than some other countries' record is cold comfort considering the realties. However, as it takes two to tango, the (TIB's) observation that while corruption level is high in Bangladesh, the money laundered by its corrupt people lands up in the countries whose CPI scores are the world's highest. So, they cannot simply wash their hands of the corruption taking place in the most corrupt nations like Bangladesh.
Be that as it may; the emphasis should now be, as suggested by TIB, to bring about change in the existing political and bureaucratic culture. Notably, some efforts to end graft are in place in the form of reform programmes under the incumbent interim government. Hopefully, those would bring results.