CORRUPTION IN ACC Public perception not totally baseless: PM

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday told parliament that the public perception about many of the Anti-Corruption Commission employees being involved in corruption was not totally baseless.
Responding to a supplementary question from ruling Awami League lawmaker Rafiqul Islam, leader of the house said that all the employees of the ACC did not have a clean chit and none could guarantee that all were 100 per cent honest.
‘The anti-graft watchdog will have to be conscious from right now about them [ACC employees], so that they don’t engage in such activities that create this sort of public perception,’ Sheikh Hasina, also the ruling Awami League president, said.
In his question, Rafiqul Islam demanded that speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury should expunge the words — many ACC employees are involved in corruption — from the question of Jatiya Party lawmaker Rowshan Ara Mannan that was put for the prime minister.
Sheikh Hasina opposed his demand, saying that there was nothing wrong with Rowshan Ara’s question.
‘The MP [Rowshan Ara Mannan in her question] has mentioned that there is a public perception, but she hasn’t said that they are certainly involved in corruption. So, there is no need to expunge those words because that is not totally false,’ Sheikh Hasina said.
In reply to Rowshan Ara’s question, the PM said that her government had a special plan to bring down corruption gradually to zero level by strengthening the ACC, increasing public awareness activities and using modern information technology.
She said that the government was determined to improve the people’s socio-economic condition and establish a good governance-based administrative structure for turning Bangladesh into a welfare state.
She viewed that there was no need to form a separate agency comprising manpower from different elite forces as the commission received assistance from any government agency whenever the anti-graft body sought it.
Mentioning that the ACC was an independent and autonomous body, the prime minister said that the commission explored and investigated any corruption allegation neutrally.
‘Therefore, the corruption tendency among government employees, including officials of different ministries and departments, is decreasing gradually,’ observed Sheikh Hasina.
Responding to a supplementary question from Rowshan Ara, the house leader said that it was essential to socially resist the perpetrators involved in sexual harassment of girls in educational institutions as it was not possible to stop them only through the law.
She urged the public representatives to constitute a committee in every area comprising guardians, teachers, representatives of religious institutions, and distinguished personalities of society to prevent sexual harassment.
‘The committee will not tolerate such offences in society,’ she said.
The prime minister went on that she even did not spare her party’s men involved in such offences.
She further said that all injustice could be eliminated from society if the public representatives worked together with all sections of people in their own locality to this end.
In an oblique reference to the transfer order of Manjur Mohammad Shahriar, Dhaka division deputy director of the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection, Sheikh Hasina said that it was not acceptable to her that an officer was transferred due to his drive against some big businesses during the Ramadan.
‘I’m also asking today that his name [Shahriar] will have to be included in the same charge,’ she said.
Even owners of the reputable business houses could not guarantee that there was nothing bad in their outlets [products], she said.
Replying to a question from Jatiya Party lawmaker Rustom Ali Faraji, the prime minister said that her government had taken various measures to ensure fair prices of paddy for farmers.
‘The government has already increased import duty to discourage rice import and decided to export surplus rice,’ she further said.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net