Bangladesh News

Bangladesh has sought support from the international community in bringing back the wealth of the country siphoned off overseas by corrupt people.

The appeal was made by the Bangladesh delegation at the second session of the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) that kicked off in Indonesia’s Bali resort island yesterday.

Around 1,000 delegates from about 140 countries, eight state observers, seven UN agencies and other international organisations and 30 local and international non-governmental organisations are attending the conference at the Bali International Convention Centre in Nusa Dua.

The meet aims to find ways for bringing back billions of dollars in assets stolen by corrupt political leaders throughout the world.

Coordinating Minister for Political, Law and Security Affairs of Indonesia, Widodo Adi Sutjipto, inaugurated the conference on behalf of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“We hope the international community will lend its full support to us in getting back the ill-gotten wealth kept in foreign lands. Bangladesh is committed against corruption and expects that the international community would provide it support in creating a corruption-free Bangladesh,” Abul Hasan Manzoor Mannan, commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), said during the general discussion. He is leading the 8-member Bangladesh delegation.

The caretaker government acceded to the UNCAC within the first month of assuming office, the ACC commissioner told the conference adding that the implementation of the convention would help Bangladesh bring down corruption as well as get back the state wealth siphoned abroad.

Officials from different civil society organisations of Bangladesh, including the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), are also participating in the conference.

“Corruption is a communicable disease, within and across countries. In some places, like a pandemic, it is out of control,” Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, observed at the inaugural function.

“Let me invite you (participants) all to be as perseverant and as conclusive as peers who attend this conference to decide and set targets so as to curtail the poisonous emissions of bribery, graft and greed that overheated public and private administrations,” Antonio Maria Costa added.

He listed three tasks for the convention, namely, to share the experiences or reports about what have been done by UNCAC member countries in fighting corruption, to discuss which additional measures are needed like technical assistance and to support the quick development of a solid peer review mechanism.

According to a United Nations (UN) and World Bank (WB) report the global flows from criminal activities, corruption and tax evasion are estimated at between $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion a year.

In September 2007, the UN and the WB launched the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative, which seeks to help poorer nations retrieve assets spirited away to richer countries.

Narrating the background for declaring the state of emergency, ACC Commissioner Mannan in his statement said that rampant corruption had destroyed the very base of Bangladesh’s democracy and crippled the fundamental institutions based on which democratic systems function.

He said the government had restructured institutions like Election Commission, Public Service Commission and ACC to strengthen the capacity of the important institutions. The re-organised ACC now has necessary power to root out graft and has already taken elaborate steps to create awareness amongst the masses about the ill effects of corruption, he added.

The ACC commissioner also said that many corrupt people in Bangladesh are now being prosecuted under the law of the land with full respect to the due process.

In his speech, Indonesia Minister Widodo Adi Sutjipto said that Indonesia would continue to build a clean government and society with implementations of anti-corruption laws and regulations and cooperation of the international community.

At the meeting, Indonesian Attorney General Hendarman Supandji was elected the new rotational president of UNCAC.

The United Nations Convention Against Corruption, ratified by 107 nations, came into force three years ago. It requires the members to make corruption a criminal offence and to cooperate with each other over graft issues and returning stolen assets.