The recent case of a representative of the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education being involved with bribery is yet another reminder that, when it comes to our public servants, corruption still prevails at a cultural level.
From negligence which leads to disaster, to incompetence which puts our infrastructure at risk, to an education system that continuously fails our children, the root cause of our national ailments remains the corruption inherent within our administrative ecosystem, placing and keeping unscrupulous individuals in each and every rung.
When it comes to even the most quotidian of our national functions, corruption -- which usually manifests in the form of rampant bribery and nepotism -- is a persistent plague that we must do away with.
While it is good to know that the state minister for primary education himself eventually found out about the bribe and had ordered for the money to be returned, the fact that there are individuals within his own ministry who are carrying out under-the-table deals with unscrupulous job-seekers is a failure on his part.
The effects of corruption are visible everywhere -- from our crumbling infrastructure to the ridiculous levels of bureaucracy when it comes to doing business. And if things keep going the way they are, not only will Bangladesh fail to fulfill its medium-to-long term economic ambitions, the scourge of corruption will surely lead to our downfall.
There are no two ways about it: If we keep allowing corruption to continue to leech off our hard work and progress, all that we have achieved up until now will have been for nothing. To that end, we must start holding our public servants to a much higher standard.
