Let us give former land minister and current fugitive from the law Saifuzzaman Chowdhury a little credit.
As revealed in the recent eye-popping documentary The Minister’s Millions bought out by Al Jazeera’s intrepid I Unit, the good (former) minister may have a taste for the finer things in life such a Rolls Royces, luxury accommodations, and $8,000 suits, but he is also not above setting a good example to his fellow countrymen and women with a little self-sacrifice and economy when the mood strikes him.
After all, his shoes are only half crocodile-belly skin and half calfskin, coming in at a modest $4,000 a pair, whereas a full crocodile-belly skin pair would run $8,000. Let no one say that Mr C (as he is fondly referred to in the video by his unctuous fixer) throws his money around willy-nilly.
The documentary is just the latest in a long litany of revelations as to the extent of the looting of the public exchequer that occurred during the tenure of the kleptocratic Hasina regime that came to an abrupt end on August 5.
What has shocked the conscience of the nation is the mind-boggling scale of the greed and implied contempt for the public good that is being uncovered.
We are not a naive nation and we are resigned to the fact that our leaders are not and never have been angels, and that some self-enrichment at the public expense is to be expected. We have no illusions as to the corruption that is embedded at every layer of governance and also as to the character of the kind of people who pose as public servants.
But in a country where the average income is barely $200 or TK 25,000 a month, the scale of the theft from the public does come as something of a shock. We expect greed and self-dealing, but not at the scale of hundreds of millions or even billions (see, eg the S Alam group). Even more galling is the knowledge that what has been uncovered is likely only the tip of the iceberg and that billions more have been looted from the country that we may never be able to trace.
It is hard to fathom the depravity of those who claim to be public servants of what is still a developing country, where so many people are still mired in immiserating poverty, not feeling any twinge of conscience as they steal public money and andline their own pockets with more money than they could spend in ten lifetimes.
I used to always consider the aphorism that “government is not the solution; government is the problem” to be a silly one, but in the context of Bangladesh I am no longer so sure. It seems to me that whatever misery people suffer here, the root cause is to be found in misgovernance.
Everything that is wrong in Bangladesh is because the government is either not doing its job properly or because those behind the injustice are themselves either a part of the government or receiving protection from it. And of course there is the straight up looting of the public exchequer by those in the government or those close to it (including it seems even a peon of the PM).
That’s it. That is the sum total of the problems faced by the Bangladeshi people. If I wanted to make money in Hasina’s Bangladesh, I wouldn’t go into business, I would go into politics. Or at the very least I would ensure that I had politicians in my back pocket as my silent partners.
Many people run decent businesses in the country and this is not an indictment of the business community in my eyes. The real money – the billions – can and has been made only by criminal partnership with those in government and abuse of governmental power to exploit the nation.
For years we have been hearing nonsense about “the Bangladesh paradox” and “good enough governance” and puzzling over why the economy has done so well regardless of such poor governance.
The simple truth is that as a nation of 170 million hard-working men and women, Bangladesh has achieved most of its success despite our successive governments and not because of them. Healthy economic growth is baked in and had we enjoyed even a modicum of good governance we could easily have seen far higher growth and far greater development than we have done.
And imagine the well-being of Bangladesh today if billions had not been systematically looted from the country over the past decade. It’s not rocket science. You don’t steal billions while in power, you’d be amazed at how much you can achieve and how quickly a country can grow.
Moving forward, as the interim government gets down to the unenviable task of fixing the economy and of fixing the institutions which pertain to the economy, let us not lose sight of the enormity of the task that they have been bequeathed, and how sometimes to look forward you also have to look back.
The revelations of the scale of the financial chicanery which are now coming out make it all the more crucial that those guilty of these crimes against the people of Bangladesh – and make no mistake, that is exactly what they are – face justice for their wrongdoing. There is no worse crime than to abuse the public trust and to steal money from the common man and women.
Secondly, we must work closely with foreign governments as well as experts in the field to claw back as much of the stolen money as we can. This is the Bangladeshi people’s money, no one else’s.
Finally, we need to put in place the safeguards such that looting of this scale can never happen again. I already feel that the revulsion that the nation feels for the extent of the theft which is now coming to light has shifted the moral calculus when it comes to tolerance for such criminality. I feel as though something has changed, and that the nation is now standing on firmer moral ground than before. This kind of abuse of power will simply not be as acceptable to us as a society moving forward as it has been in the past.
But let’s not kid ourselves, either. Unless we close down the opportunities for such theft and put in place mechanisms for its detection and severe consequences thereto, the danger remains.
We can never be ruled by thieves again and we have to do everything in our power to ensure this.
Zafar Sobhan is Editor, Dhaka Tribune.
