But, as the BNP used this as a political tool to embarrass the then AL government, the AL did the same this time. The BNP however made it an election pledge to remove the disgrace by acting strong-handedly in curbing corruption. Unfortunately, we haven't seen that happening as yet. Instead, BNP refused to accept the TI index this time.

The very party that hailed the TI report when it went in its favor is now acting in the same manner as its opponent did in the past. What could be more hypocritical than this?

The AL, on the other hand, shouldn't have taken advantage of the report because it had discredited the methodology of the index when it was in the government. But the party now accepts the report wholeheartedly and uses this as a political tool to embarrass the government; exactly in the same manner as that of the BNP.

While we may argue over the subjective biases of the index to downgrade its credibility, it won't change the fact that corruption is a major problem for us. If nothing else, with a little extra effort, we can come out of the most corrupt status. All we need to do is to outperform Nigeria, our nearest competitor, by improving our score a little more than 1.4 (and hope that Nigeria remains at 1.4 next year)!

Indeed we have improved a lot from a meagre 0.4 in 2001 to 1.3 this year. It's an improving trend, and maybe we will come out of the most corrupt status by next year! Should that happen, it will be interesting to see how the two parties react.