Corruption: In an attempt to curb corruption, the Bangladesh Anti Corruption Commission and the Anti-Corruption of Bhutan would work together in future.

The former is also considering signing a memorandum of understanding with its counterpart in Bhutan.

Bangladesh ACC chairperson Md Badiuzzaman, who is on his first visit to the country, said signing of memorandum of understanding would help nations to share best practices and combat the  social malaise.

“Being two friendly countries we have come to learn and also share our knowledge with our counterparts in Bhutan,” the chairperson said.

He said Bangladesh has in the past few years emphasised on the preventive measures using the civil societies, which the commission could share about.

“Of course, I don’t claim that I have done everything,” he said.

“In most of the cases in the region, interference from the power centres is a challenge in fighting corruption,” the chairperson said.

“It makes our job much easier with the political will, independence guaranteed by the Constitution and having champions against corruption in our Kings,” ACC chairperson Kinley Yangzom said.

Chairperson Md Badiuzzaman said that the commission in Bhutan is doing a good job because their activities are assessed by Transparency International. “The impression in the report is very good.”

He said SAARC countries should work together on corruption. “Respective governments should come forward, without the political will it will be difficult to fight corruption,” he said.

“With new challenges of cyber crime and white-collar corruption, ACC needs to grow much quicker to address these challenges,” he said.

The way to fight corruption in future is through a lot of partnership and alliances, which requires the commission to work with other international organisations, experts said.

Chairperson Kinley Yangzom said the commission human resources shortage problems is resulting in huge backlog cases.

Of 635 complaints that qualified for investigation between 2006 to March 2015 only 142 or one-fifth of them have been investigated. There is a backlog of 493 complaints.

The commission will present its human resource master plan to the Royal Civil Service Commission tomorrow.

The chairman and two commissioners appointed by the President lead the ACC Bangladesh working with 1,073 staff dealing with about 12,000 complaints a year.

The seven-member delegation from Bangladesh is in the country for a five-day study visit to share best practices, raise awareness about the challenges in tackling corruption, and build regional ties.

This is the sixth delegation the commission has received from its counter parts in since 2010.

Tshering Palden

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