Staff Reporter :
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has expressed deep concern over the Advisory Council’s approval of the draft Anti-Corruption Commission (Amendment) Ordinance 2025, saying that it overlooks several crucial strategic recommendations made by the ACC Reform Commission aimed at ensuring the institution’s independence and accountability.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said that although the proposed ordinance shows “slight improvement” over the existing law and incorporates a few of the Reform Commission’s suggestions, it fails to address the core issues that have long undermined the Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) credibility.
“The Reform Commission proposed a ‘selection and review committee’ to ensure transparency and accountability, but the government dropped the review part that would have allowed periodic evaluation of the ACC’s performance,” he said. “This omission weakens the mechanism for oversight and continuous institutional improvement.”
Dr Iftekharuzzaman noted that the ordinance touches upon only a small fraction of the urgent reforms identified by the Commission.
“Key recommendations on governance, recruitment transparency, bureaucratic influence, internal corruption, and legal reforms were expected to be implemented jointly by the government and the ACC. Instead, the draft fails to introduce any meaningful change in these areas,” he said.
He criticised the government’s decision to assign the President — instead of the Chief Justice — the role of selecting an anti-corruption expert for the ACC’s selection committee, calling it a deviation from the Reform Commission’s intent to promote impartiality. “The rule to publish shortlisted names has also been dropped, which seriously undermines transparency,” he added.
Another major recommendation ignored, Dr Iftekharuzzaman said, was the proposal to expand the number of commissioners from three to five. “This would have allowed the ACC to distribute its workload more efficiently and incorporate a broader range of expertise. The government’s reluctance to adopt this reflects a lack of commitment to genuine reform,” he observed.
He questioned how the government or the ACC could justify disregarding reforms on which there had been broad consensus. “If the goal is to make the ACC truly independent, effective, and trusted, there can be no shortcut to comprehensive reform,” he said.
TIB reiterated that the credibility of the anti-corruption drive depends not only on legal amendments but also on the political will to ensure the ACC’s operational autonomy. “By sidelining key reform proposals, the draft ordinance risks perpetuating the very weaknesses that have long plagued the Commission,” Dr Iftekharuzzaman warned.
TIB urged the government to revisit the draft ordinance before its promulgation, incorporate the full set of recommendations made by the Reform Commission, and engage in broad-based consultations to restore public trust in the nation’s top anti-graft body.
