Corruption in Bangladesh isn’t new. In fact, from 2001 – 2005 Bangladesh was ranked most corrupt in Transparency International’s world-wide survey. (Before that, there was no data from Bangladesh.) Wow.
With the impressive efforts of the Anti-Corruption Commission since 2007, Bangladesh has cleaned up and is now tied for 31st in the poll. As in, 30 other countries score worse on the corruption index. When you’re fighting your way up from the bottom, that’s an impressive achievement.
But the scope of the corruption is just starting to come out, thanks in part to some housecleaning on the other side of the word – the massive Siemens scandal that broke in Germany and in the US about a month ago. Siemens, a German company, had been writing corruption as a line-item cost into all of its international contracts, budgeting from 5% to 40% of the contract’s value for bribes. This added up to “an annual bribery budget of about $40 million to $50 million.“
And one of these contracts was in Bangladesh, a telecommunications project. The bribes on this deal totaled $5,319,839. The Prime Minister at that time was Khaleda Zia, and her son Koko was alleged to be on the receiving end of a chunk of this cash. The story is back in the news today because the US wants to freeze accounts and confiscate funds paid in bribes from this deal and another infrastructure contract. Koko’s accounts in Singapore have been frozen and the US Justice Department is seeking a forfeiture action against the funds. The full story is in today’s Daily Star.
What to say? It’s about time. Also, I hope this all trickles down to the normal people. You know, the ones who can’t pay $5 million dollars to win a contract. I hope that somehow these headlines keep the Anti-Corruption Commission working, keep the government improving, and most of all help cut down on all the everyday fees, gifts, kickbacks, and other costs that normal people put up with just to get things done – a phone line installed, a driver’s license, a customs clearance. Cleaning up the government, and the business environment, is crucial – absolutely essential – for this country to move forward.
Have you had to bribe (“tip”) people to get things done? Did the re-upholstering go “overbudget?”
Well – it depends on how you look at it. As outsiders, I think we’re kind of immune to the bribe thing. We’re not part of the “system,” we don’t know how things work here, any since we work for the Embassy there’s some incentive for companies to provide good service. Also, the Embassy arranges for a lot of our services on our behalf (e.g. our phone line) so we don’t have to deal with it. So no, we’ve never paid a bribe.
On the other hand, as a foreigner, we’re often charged far more than the going rate for goods. Most stores are not “fixed-price”; there is no sticker on the item indicating how much it costs. In this case the salesman can charge you what he wishes, and bargaining does not seem to be super popular. Often when we ask what the price is, there is a long pause and we can see the mental gears turning as the salesman multiplies the normal price by 2 or 3. Corruption? Probably not. Annoying? Yes.
[...] Memos is impressed with the improvement of Bangladesh in the corrupted countries index and suggests ways forward. [...]