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‘ACC faces crisis of public trust’


Published : 22 Nov 2019 08:37 PM | Updated : 05 Sep 2020 05:42 AM

Top officials of the Anti-Corruption Commission on Thursday said the commission was facing serious crisis of people’s trust in them and they thought the scale of failure overweighed their successes. The commission chairman Iqbal Mahmood, commissioner AFM Aminul Islam, secretary M Delowar Bakth and other senior officials came up with the observation at a discussion at its head office in Dhaka.
The commission organised the discussion marking its 15th founding anniversary.

Iqbal Mahmood said the commission was planning to involve outsiders from different disciplines in its complaint scrutiny process. He said a person would be invited in the process for a day only and he would monitor the scrutiny work to ensure transparency in the process.

He thought the initiative would help the commission to earn people’s trust. He also said the commission failed to prove 30 per cent its cases in the trial stages for lack efficiency of the commission officials. Aminul said a section of the commission officials are not conducting inquiry and investigation in proper ways. ‘As a result, we find mistakes in their probe reports and first information reports which benefited the suspects in the trial stages,’ he added.

He said the commission increased the timeframe for completing inquiry and investigation amending its rules but the officials still fail to complete their task in time. About the public hearing on services of different government offices organised by the commission, the commissioner said its officials faced obstacles at different offices in many districts.

He said a section of government officials were of the opinion that there was no need of the commission’s holding public hearing at their offices as they hold such hearing on their own. Among others, several director generals and directors of the commission also spoke at the programme.