Bangladesh scored 1.7 points last year on a scale of 0-10 and had been at the top of the list of most corrupt countries in the world for five successive years from 2001-2005. It was ranked 3rd from bottom this year, having scored 2.0. Among the South Asian neighbours, Pakistan was ranked 142nd from the top with a score of 2.2 points Nepal 121st with 2.5 points, Sri Lanka 84th with 3.1 points, and India 70th with 3.3 points.

Finland, Iceland, and New Zealand were jointly ranked least corrupt with 9.6 points while Haiti was ranked at the bottom of the list with 1.8 points, followed by Myanmar and Iraq with 1.9 points each. A total of 163 countries were included this year in the CPI, out of which 71 countries have scores below 3 points, indicating a strong correlation between corruption and poverty, while industrialized countries have continued to score relatively high on the CPI 2006.

There have been a lot of controversies among the ruling circle on the methodology of research for detecting the trend of corruption in Bangladesh since the country was first crowned as the king of corruption in 2001. The governments that were in power in all these years reacted negatively with increasing venom to TI, even threatening to take its Bangladesh chapter to court for what they claimed was a campaign to spoil the country's image abroad.

One does not really need any special research methodology to detect the trend of corruption in Bangladesh, as the corruption is all-pervasive. If any proof is needed about the massive scale of corruption in some of the ministries, it has been provided in the white paper on power sector corruption published on November 8 by the recently formed Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The white paper said that Tk 6,000 crore was looted during the five-year tenure of the immediate past government.

Corruption was in rampant during the whole tenure of the alliance government. The BNP-led alliance government suspended two fertilizer projects on the ground of corruption by the AL government, when it came to power in 2001. But Begum Khaleda Zia inaugurated both the over-priced fertilizer plants on September 12, imposing perennial losses on the nation.

According to the TIB's corruption database, over Tk 34,550 crore went down the drain from the public exchequer in six years since 2000. On the basis of 3,293 newspaper reports scanned during the year 2000, TIB said that the government faced a loss of Tk 17,192.58 crore. TIB came out with the figure of Tk 11,296 crore for the year 2001. The loss of the government was Tk 4,391.67 crore in 2002. It however, came down below Tk 1,000 crore in 2003, but rose to Tk 4,130 crore in 2004.

Around 6,000 allegations of corruption against the political bigwigs, including former ministers and MPs, are pending as the ACC remains dysfunctional since its formation on November 21, 2004. The ACC failed to initiate any investigation of these allegations as it lacks any rules for functioning and the ruling elites have been making the best use of the inactivity of the ACC.

Former law and parliamentary minister Moudud Ahamed, who once claimed the formation of the ACC as a landmark step of his government in fulfilling its election pledge of combating corruption, has now crippled it. Moudud moved against a High Court order on November 1, and got the functioning of the ACC stayed up to January 21 amid growing demands for investigation into corruption of ministers and MPs of the BNP-led alliance government.

Former communication minister, Najmul Huda, who is accused of huge corruption, including CNG import scam of Tk 2 billion, took initiative for leasing 4.16 acres of railway land in a prime location in the capital to a firm for construction of a five-star hotel, without floating any tender and violating rules and procedures. The lease agreement was signed on October 19, only eight days before the step-down of the BNP-led alliance government, and is another glaring example of major corruption.

Bangladesh has also been excluded from the list of countries selected for US assistance to be provided through the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) funds for 2007 due to its endemic corruption. Earlier World Bank cancelled and demanded refund of Tk 6.8 crore from three projects for corruption. The international development partners including the World Bank and Asian Development Bank are always coming down heavily on the government for its failure in curbing massive corruption, for which the country is known in the world.

The fundamental problem that lies with corruption in our country is the dominance of the vested interests. The misuse of public power for private gain is the major means of corruption, which has assumed alarming proportions. Corruption is not just taking bribes; it covers a broad spectrum of misdeeds. So, it is not an easy task to curb corruption and it calls for concordant efforts from the government, opposition, and the civil society.

There is no real reason for us to be satisfied with climbing up two steps on the CPI ladder, as the improvement is not a real one. The rude reality lies in the fact that more countries have come under TI scrutiny this year and some other countries have performed worse than Bangladesh. We fully agree with Prof Muzaffer Ahamed, chairman of the board of trustees of TIB who said: "My personal experience is that corruption has worsened in the country." All people in this country know this harsh truth, as they themselves are the helpless victims of rampant corruption.

The people at large are expecting the ACC to be activated during the tenure of the caretaker government and to take action against ministers and MPs of the BNP-led four-party government, if any specific allegation of corruption can be substantiated.

But Moudud's move is likely to stop the ACC's functioning during the whole tenure of the CTG. Now it is quite clear that the BNP-led alliance government formed the ACC only to hoodwink the donors as well as the people of this country. The people of this country will not have salvation from the curse of corruption until political power is passed on to honest and clean persons.

ANM Nurul Haque is a columnist of The Daily Star.