Benazir-Aziz issue will question the forces’s integrity of nation

Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed :
The administrative work of the government is managed by the government officials. The first and foremost duty of government employees is to serve the common man while keeping the image of the government intact.

It is the essential demand of the people today to serve the people and the nation in the spirit of civil-servant only. How strong is our bureaucracy? Whether our Bureaucracy is helpful or hindering the development of the state? These questions are driving people constantly.

The existing bureaucratic system can be termed as bureaucratic tyranny. Social inequality is created in the existing bureaucracy. The transparency and accountability of the various executive departments of the government is being lost due to the selfishness and favoritism of the bureaucrats. Even the Judiciary is being questioned today due to administrative interference on the Judiciary.

Bureaucrats are abusing the state and administration by taking various privileges from the government. Benazir and Aziz are the top two names who abused government powers. They have misused power and tried to make the government crippled. They made traps for the government and held the government hostage or toy to their hands. Besides, there are many who are enjoying and indulging in many misdeeds behind the screen. Here we see the failure of government.

The narratives of corruption coming out of public offices nowadays would defeat any movie script. The slyness of tactics that corrupt officials often used to misappropriate public funds and then exempt themselves from legal consequences would shock anyone. The alleged shenanigans of Cox’s Bazar former deputy commissioner Ruhul Amin to exonerate himself from corruption charges is a case in point. It is frustrating that the government’s zero-tolerance policy against corruption continues to be a slogan without substance even as it plagues the whole nation.

The recent disclosures of alleged corruption involving two top officials of the National Board of Revenue (NBR), following high-profile cases involving a former IGP and an army chief, have once again underscored how widespread corruption has become. The government says there are stringent anti-corruption measures in place, and that actions are taken whenever an incident is reported.

The truth couldn’t be more different, however. While we have laws criminalizing bribery, money laundering, or use of public resources for private gain, in reality, those are seldom used. If anything, anti-graft laws and regulations targeting government employees have been rather relaxed, lightening penalties for corruption.

The story of identifying the law enforcement agencies as the “most corrupt sector” in the TIB survey and subsequent rejection by the BPSA came to my mind in the wake of the recent allegations of massive corruption against former police and Rab chief Benazir Ahmed. Documents from the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) show that Benazir and his family bought at least 204.5 acres of land between 2009 and 2023. Of these, 112 acres were purchased during his tenure as inspector general of police (IGP) and Rab chief.

Was Benazir Ahmed’s purchase of such a vast amount of land while he was head of police and Rab consistent with the legitimate income he was earning? Why was Benazir’s corruption exposed only after his retirement, and not when he was in office? No action was taken against Benazir’s massive corruption and abuse of power when he was in office. The entire government, including the ministry of home affairs, is also responsible here.

The Public Security Division of the home ministry honoured him with the Integrity Award 2020-21. But the Integrity Award is supposed to be given to someone who meets the standards of scrupulousness and honesty. Where were those standards when Benazir was given the award?

Apart from the Integrity Award, Benazir was awarded the highest medal of the police force, Bangladesh Police Medal (BPM), a total of five times between 2011 and 2019. With so many intelligence agencies in the country and so much surveillance, is it at all believable that the authorities, including the LEAs, were not aware of his illegal activities? How dysfunctional could a country’s institutional system be that the person who was involved in massive corruption was rewarded time and again, instead of being punished?

Aziz was Bangladesh’s army chief between 2018 and 2021. His actions have contributed to the undermining of Bangladesh’s democratic institutions and the public’s faith in public institutions and processes,’ said the US statement, adding that Aziz Ahmed engaged in significant corruption by interfering in public processes while helping his brother evade accountability for criminal activity in Bangladesh.

Aziz also worked closely with his brother to ensure the improper awarding of military contracts and accepted bribes in exchange for government appointments for his personal benefit, according to the statement. On May 21, the United States Department of State announced that the former chief of the Bangladesh Army, General Aziz Ahmed, and his family members are generally ineligible to enter the US due to his involvement in ‘significant corruption’.

The way we are thinking of the progress of our Bangladesh, by targeting the year 2041, that progress and potentiality will face a big challenge. The fire and confusion will burn the country. It will have an enormous detrimental effect on the forces. Gradually the honour and dignity of the army, police and all other forces will be lost. Benazir-Aziz is not the only one – there are many more such mafias inside and out of touch.

They should be brought to justice. At least 1 dozen secretaries (specially the then home, housing and works) and many deputy commissioners, tarnished the nation by making a blue print in the 2018 elections and taking votes in the dark of night. It has questioned our democracy in the outside world. As I am writing this opinion we are getting many other reports of pilferage, Corruption and misdeeds adding to the recent disclosures of scams involving former and current security and revenue officials.

(The author is a former Deputy Director General, Bangladesh Ansar and VDP; columnist and researcher. )