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Institutional Corruption

ACC drive sluggish for poor manpower, expertise

Julfikar Ali Manik
The Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) drive against institutional corruption launched with much publicity at the end of last year has yet to gather pace.
.Manpower shortage and lack of expertise and skills to carry out effective investigations have made it wry hard for the long-awaited campaign to be at full throttle, said ACC sources.
Until the anti-graft body develops its own capacity and apparatus. it will have to depend on the findings of investigations by the taskforces under the National Coordination Committee to combat crime and corruption, they added.
Meanwhile, an ACC official seeking anonymity said the commission is in fact doing a research
on one or two organisations as a 'test case' to gather experience and work out ways to combat institutional graft.
"At present, we don't have experience of fighting institutional corruption. We believe the drive would lay the foundations for our future actions," added the official.
Talking to The Daily Star recently, ACC Director General (admin) Col Hanif Iqbal said, "The campaign against institutional corruption has yet to be given an operational shape."
Besides the service-oriented organisations in both the public and private sectors, the ones whose expenses are met from public purse would be its target.
Insiders say the ACC has not yet prepared a list of the organisations. But there would be one soon of those having allegations of wide-
spread corruption and irregularities.
Though the National Coordination Committee taskforces have been working on corruption in government organisations since February last year, the ACC decided to conduct investigation on its own to gain experience.
Probes by the taskforces have so far been confined to seven government institutions. The ACC would take up the responsibility of those and formalise the findings under a legal framework provided by the ACC Act, said sources.
For the ongoing drive, the ACC has picked an institution in addition to the seven being dealt by the taskforces.
Another official preferring anonymity said, "We are taking help from some independent experts in the research we are
doing on corruption in a government organisation. We will match our findings against those of the investigations by the taskforces.
"After finishing the research and investigation we would be able to know the areas where we should increase our capacity to combat organisational graft effectively. ”
The official further said, "Most of our investigators are occupied with probing graft of high profile individuals. Many of them are already overloaded with work meaning difficulties for the ACC to get the drive against institutional corruption into full swing."
The commission launched the drive last year as it just wanted to make a start. And this year it will expand its work and go for large-scale investigation of institutional corruption. During the course of investigation, the ACC would be able to trace those who had caused damage to the organisation by corruption in the past. Graft suspects will be identified and brought to trial.
The commission will not restrict itself to investigating corruption and irregularities in organisations. It will also recommend remedial measures for the government to check institutional corruption.
Hanif said, "Having the drive at full throttle would take some time as the commission is understaffed at this time with many of its officials engaged in different other investigations/
Queried then what was the rationale behind undertaking such a major task with such inadeauacy, he said, “We've started the job as we thought it was needed on a priority basis."
He said the drive would not be entirely dependanton the taskforces' work. He, however, admitted that the taskforces have been providing "a major input".
After the military-backed caretaker government took office last January, the taskforces of the National Coordination Committee to combat crime and corruption waged a campaign against corruption in government agencies, the first of its kind in the nation's history.
The move that has all along been kept a very low-key affair came as part of the government's countrywide crackdown on high-profile graft suspects in February last year.