The claim by the powers that be that corruption will not be tolerated rings rather hollow when the national budget provides for a legalisation of illegally earned money in the country, perhaps also outside the country. In the past, there was always a chorus of voices railing against budgetary provisions guaranteeing a whitening of black money in exchange of a certain amount of tax to be paid by the possessors of that money. We had thought that black era of black money becoming legitimately earned income had come to an end.
The national budget this year has convinced us that the shame of informing corrupt individuals that their wrongfully earned wealth will not have the state prosecute them but instead give them a way out of their predicament on their payment of 15% in taxes has not gone away. When governance becomes intermixed with efforts to reward the corrupt, it is the state which pays a price. The ominous message emerging from the budget is clear: men can engage in corruption knowing full well that the state will be liberal enough to look away from their criminality, will indeed treat them at some point as respected members of society.
There is nothing in the constitution or in any law which informs us that corrupt practices can be waived by the state or government. The ramifications of turning black money into white opens up an entire area of inquiry for the people of the country. If illegally earned income -- and that means money earned through means foul or extraction from others or commandeered in criminal manner -- is to be regularised through national budgetary provisions, what does the state do about all the other instances of corruption faced by the country?
There are the innumerable examples of homes bought by the unscrupulous abroad. There are reports of shopping centres and malls purchased overseas with purloined money. We have had in recent years reports of the Begum Para episode in distant Canada. And there are all the sordid tales of individuals looting banks, defaulting on loans taken from banks and walking about free at home and abroad. So do we envisage measures that will someday, sooner rather than later, be brought in to reassure these corrupt elements that provisions will be in place for their criminality to be given legal cover?
This move of turning black money into white raises questions among good citizens about the nature of politics as it defines the workings of the state today. Or has politics given way to the notoriously expedient? At a time when the government emphasises development as a fundamental goal before it, when infrastructure and food security are the objectives, it happens to be pursuing as policy, this program of giving legal shape to money earned through corrupt means undermines the good the government means to do for the country.
Our political system is flawed, which is one reason why political figures and civil society have for years endeavoured to bring about positive changes to it, the purpose being the creation of an egalitarian society that will have every citizen contribute to the strengthening of transparency and accountability in governance.
Such endeavours are gravely undermined when the state moves to forgive the sins of the corrupt. Observe the cavalier manner in which the authorities have approached the scandal swirling around a former inspector general of police, who we understand has been allowed to fly out of the country when he ought to have been detained.
There are the instances of money being embezzled at one of our important diplomatic missions, with little indication of any corrective action yet taken. A market going up through Rajuk authorisation in the nation’s capital burns down and soon it is discovered that unauthorised eateries were set up within that structure. No one has taken Rajuk officials to task over their failure to keep tabs on what went wrong in the market and with it.
It is a miserable condition we are caught in. With politically ambitious men making it known to the Election Commission that their wealth has registered an enormous rise since the last time they submitted their wealth statements to the commission, it is obvious that much of that wealth has been the consequence of means plainly questionable.
These individuals have not been asked about the sources of their wealth, not by the Election Commission, not by the government, but have been free to seek office through elections. What message is being sent to the country through this inability or reluctance of the powers that be to inquire into the unbridled affluence of these politically ambitious people? Where they should be prosecuted, they are competing for or elected to legislative office.
Measures such as whitening of black money undermine the inviolability of the constitution and the sanctity of the state. They ignore the interests of the larger body of citizens, people who live honest lives and struggle to make a living through decent means. Worse, they project the image of a society on which has been thrust a system of pseudo-capitalism that thrives on exploitation and malfeasance. Observe the market, where organised syndicates do all they can to enhance the sufferings of citizens.
The state does not or cannot or will not go after these syndicates, which points to everything that is going wrong in the land. Local government ought by now to have become a political reality in the country, but debate goes on about the need for it to rise to being a credible political system. You cannot have meaningful local government with members of parliament and bureaucrats lording it over elected upazila and union parishad officials.
Journalism is in an ailing state. Those who have the professional integrity of placing all the right questions before politicians are upbraided for their temerity, with the political figures demonstrating the gall to instruct these journalists to do more studies before asking questions. When politicians so arrogantly speak to the media, with not an iota of humility or politeness in them, it is a broad hint of the sickness which afflicts the national body politic.
One wishes Tajuddin Ahmad were around to underscore the meaning and objectives of national budgets. He knew where the nation needed to go in terms of the economy and, in broad measure, of the financial welfare of the people of Bangladesh. Would he have permitted the owners of questionably earned wealth get away with their crime? Would he have told us that black was white, that a mere payment of taxes could dress the corrupt in the raiment of respectability? Would he have permitted a handful of individuals turn into billionaires in a country of impoverished millions?
The corrupt would have trembled before Tajuddin Ahmad.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Consultant Editor, Dhaka Tribune.
