Published in Dhaka Tribune on Sunday, 16 February 2014.
‘Trustworthiness of political leadership dips’
Muhammad Zahidul Islam
PPRC launches report on good governance trend and perception
More than three-fourths people think that trustworthiness of political leadership has deteriorated while only 5.6% people sees improvement, says a new survey report prepared by Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC), a think tank.
However, Democracy International in a USAID-funded opinion poll recently said parliament is the most popular institution in the country when 83% people strongly like it as a political institution. While three major political parties enjoy support of 69%.
The DI opinion poll results, released this month, says 32% people like the Awami League, 31% like the BNP while 6% like Jatiya Party (Ershad).
The PPRC launched the report of its first series “Bangladesh 2013: Governance Trends and Perception” yesterday at the Bilia auditorium in the capital. Rehman Sobhan, chairman of Centre for Policy Dialogue, and Akbar Ali Khan, a former adviser to a caretaker government, along with others unveiled the report.
When some of the speakers criticised the PPRC report from different aspects, its Executive Chairman Hossain Zillur Rahman defended their study claiming that economic development would not continue without good governance. “If the GDP rises up to 20% it will fail if the government cannot provide dignity and security to the people.”
However, Rehman Sobhan said: “You can never run a report without proper explanation. Figures do not mean anything if there is no justification with it.”
The PPRC claims: “The political leadership has suffered the steepest decline in trustworthiness with which they are held by the citizens as institutions of government.”
The report states that 75.6% of the respondents had negative assessment compared to only 5.6% who were positive. As many as 17% people had an unchanged assessment.
Former bureaucrat Akbar Ali Khan said though there were lots of criticisms inside the PPRC survey, at the same time, “we need to find some indicators and this report can be an indicator.
“The World Bank also gives us some reports but that does not give us any indicator. It is a multinational corporation. We need our own data, information and indicators.”
Echoing Prof Sobhan, he said: “The PPRC needs to explain the data.”
As per the PPRC findings, 71.2% respondents think the police service has deteriorated. It also says every three out of five people suffered criminal incidents, while 70.9% affected people never sought redress.
The PPRC also found that 41% respondents did not seek remedy as their expectation about result was very low whereas some others think that it may invite fresh harassment to their life as they have no confidence on the law enforcement agencies.
The report was prepared after surveying 500 households mainly in Dhaka last year.
Another former adviser of a caretaker government, M Hafizuddin Khan, said the police had been involved in politics with other agencies seriously.
He shared how he was mugged by criminals using government vehicle and the police remained reluctant despite being informed.
According to the PPRC report, corruption in politics and bureaucracy was “setback for the nation.”
The report says 55% of the government employees are taken from quotas, which should be cut down.
The respondents said the state of rule of law and judiciary, and the performance of RAB also deteriorated.
Lawyer Syeda Rizwana Hasan said: “We always see the same statement from RAB when someone is found dead following arrest. It should be changed, or the force will lose the people’s respect.”
Farah Kabir said the society was also allowing crime through political and bureaucratic systems.
Hossain Zillur said the PPRC would run this type of survey every year and those would be more advanced and pragmatic.
Along with others, TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman, Executive Director of Brac Dr Sultan Hafeez Rahman, formed caretaker advisers Hasan Arif and Maj Gen Manjur Kader, former cabinet secretary Ali Imam Majumder, former member of the Planning Commission Kazi Mezbahuddin also spoke at the programme.