Corruption virus spreads in absence of remedial measures

YET another civil servant was caught red-handed by the Anti-Corruption Commission along with nearly Tk 2 crore in Dinajpur on Thursday. The arrestee Tajul Islam is the Project Implementation Officer (PIO) of Parbatipur upazila, who allegedly stole the money from different government project funds. The ACC team at first found Tk 55,000 at Tajul’s office. Rest was found stashed in four travel bags at his residence hidden under the bed and almirah. What’s true is that — arrest of government officials along with illegal money and assets is nothing new. Usually, such type of arrest, like Tajul, doesn’t bear any significance as ACC is habituated to conduct drives against petty criminals, not against the big fishes. Even, several ACC officials were caught and charged with criminal offenses for taking bribes and other facilities from the accused for diverting investigation process.
But one thing is not clear to us. How the civil servants are still daring enough in taking bribes and stealing money from projects when the government has officially declared a war against corruption? The government officials and employees’ salaries and other benefits were increased several folds thinking that it would discourage them from earning through illegal ways. But in the course of time it was proved that – the government’s motive was wholly political – and it was done to tighten the government’s grip on the bureaucracy with a view to using them in favour of the government. As a result, in big corruption cases in the Civil Service including the police department none was punished exemplarily. Not only that, in other sectors – from looting banks to laundering money through under invoicing – big corrupts got off scot-free.
It seems the total state machinery has been got infected by corruption virus and there is no remedy in hand. Nobody knows when we will get rid of the disease.