Instead of appreciating the enormous courage and conviction shown by the journalists, they are reprimanded, repressed, tortured or harassed by the government for finding out their faults and failures. A number of journalists lost their lives simply because some powerful politicians or leading activists could not be happy with them. Nothing has been done to protect the journalists in their quest for finding out the truth.

Curbing of corruption was certainly a major election commitment made by BNP during the election of 2001. After coming to power we find that the party has completely forgotten about the commitment. Instead of making any honest effort to curb, it has allowed practicing corruption by as many as possible of its members. Like any other political party, some of its members do love indulging in corruption, while some others like to remain honest. The honest ones now repent because they no longer can compete with the richer corrupt members in obtaining nomination from the party.

To their great shock and frustration, they find that no longer honesty, dedication and even participation in the war of independence are enough to qualify them for nomination.

We cannot say that the government did nothing to curb corruption. By abolishing the bureau of anti-corruption it has officially set up a commission with retired persons with different backgrounds. Not to speak of starting any real work the commission has not yet been able to obtain approval of its organogram. Though some personnel of the defunct BAC have been absorbed in the commission no work could be started because of lack of field staff. Thus by abolishing the BAC the government in fact allowed the people whose cases were pending with the BAC to get some respite for "tadbir" to free themselves from charges against them. As the true start of the ACC's work is still uncertain the accused have enough time for relaxation (may be new opportunities for increasing their wealth).

Among the most corrupt ministries, the most prominent are Ministries of Communications, Home Affairs, Local Government and Rural Development, Public Works, Finance, Energy and Power and Education. The annual audit reports (submitted by the CAG), newspaper investigations or the TIB compilations are almost ignored by the government which encourage people to hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil. Though supposed to be an accountable government it has made even the recommendations of the parliamentary committee dumped in the basket. This has made the corrupt officials and law makers more bold and desperate.

Some ministers not only deny corruption in their ministries then do not hesitate to shout at TIB and threaten them with filing cases against them. The ministry of communication, despite its challenge, failed to submit any information against the charge of corruption. The late minister for shipping, refused to contest the complaint of corruption against his ministry before the concerned parliamentary committee. He even suggested the members of the committee to refer the case to the ACC if they considered it appropriate.

It has become abundantly clear that without full operation of the ACC and the appointment of ombudsman, the curse of corruption cannot be controlled because it has become a part of our culture. The donor agencies are worried about corruption. They have requested the government repeatedly to take appropriate steps. They have offered technical aid to the government to accomplish the task. In fact the amount of aid may be reduced in future if the government fail to show positive steps in curbing corruption.

It is hardly possible for a government dominated by corrupt members linked to the past corrupt dictatorial regime of Ershad. The first regime of Khaleda (1991-96) was much less corrupt than her present regime. Either she has become too ambitious or she has lost control over the party.

The alliance government complains that the media is hostile to the government and it always tries to find out faults of the government. It never tries to publish the achievements of the government. This government likes to ignore the fact that our conscious citizens are fully aware of the fact that without the ceaseless striving of the press to find the truth about the government and the political activities people would have been in complete darkness and the suffering of the common men would have been enormous.

In fact, without fearless journalism it is difficult to imagine even running of parliamentary democracy. People would have at least deprived of seeing the statements of the opposition who prefer indulging in street politics and tracing out failures of the party/parties in position.

During the last four and a half years, corruption is responsible for widening the gap between the rich and the poor, increasing extortion, poorer quality of governmental construction (development projects), dominance of money in politics, unprecedented price hike. Though the alliance government is supposed to be collectively responsible for failure to curb corruption, only the main party i.e. BNP will have to bear the brunt.

BNP is going to face a tough job in handling the task of nomination of candidates in the next election. With the highly politicised inefficient corrupt bureaucracy, tremendous pressure from the senior members of JCD to allow them to greater participation in national politics, proper utilisation of senior, dedicated, experienced and moderate members of BNP, allocation of seats to alliance partners (particularly JI).

In a situation dominated by the trade syndicates, wealthy class and corrupt high officials party members will be asking for too much if they expect nomination of honest, sincere and dedicated workers. After all the government have not allowed whitening of so much of black money without any motive. In the accumulation of this huge amount of black money it is corruption which has played a critical role. So why they bother for curbing corruption?

ABMS Zahur is a former Joint Secretary.