DIPAN NANDY

The search committee to form a new Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is unlikely to be constituted before the Eid holidays.

Officials anticipate that the committee will be formed in the first week of next month after the break, meaning the ACC may remain without a commission for another one and a half months.

The anti-graft body has been operating without commissioners since the resignation of the commission led by Dr Mohammed Abdul Momen on March 3.

Since the Bureau of Anti-Corruption was transformed into the ACC in 2004, this is the longest period the institution has remained without a commission.

Several senior ACC officials told The Daily Star that the institution has become largely stagnant. They had hoped the search committee would be formed before Eid and that a new commission would take office by mid-next month, but the delay has disappointed them.

Officials said although the ACC Act, 2004 has been reinstated, no initiative has yet been taken to form the legally required search committee for appointing a new commission.

The previous interim government had attempted to amend the ACC Act through an ordinance issued on December 23 last year.

During the first parliamentary session of the BNP-led government, 133 ordinances, including the ACC-related ordinance, were placed before parliament. Of those, 113 were passed, seven rejected, and 13 -- including the ACC ordinance -- remained pending.

Under the law, the effectiveness of those 13 ordinances expired 30 days after the start of the parliamentary session on April 11. As a result, the ACC Act, 2004 came back into effect from that date.

However, more than a month after the law was reinstated, the Cabinet Division has yet to form the search committee to appoint a new ACC chairman and two commissioners.

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