In the polite lexicon of bureaucracy, it was termed a voluntary resignation. In the harsher reality of power politics, it was allegedly a forced exit. On Tuesday, Mohammad Abdul Momen, chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission, and his two fellow commissioners abruptly vacated their posts just 15 months into their five-year terms. Momen wryly observed that a new political government “will naturally want to work according to its own manifesto.” This sudden exit is still a worrying signal about the trajectory of the new administration, as it raises the possibility of partisan influences.
Under Momen’s brief leadership, the ACC was uncharacteristically active. Installed by the interim government in December 2024 to clean up the rot left behind by the ousted Awami League regime, the commission moved with unusual resolve. It targeted a sprawling nexus of oligarchs, politicians, and phantom corporations that had long treated the national exchequer as a private slush fund. The scale of its actions was striking. In 2025 alone, the ACC froze or attached assets worth over Tk 29,300 crore (roughly $2.5 billion), compared with a paltry Tk 11 crore the year before. It impounded nearly 7,000 acres of land, locked down 1,360 bank accounts holding highly liquid cash, and froze shares in 105 companies worth Tk 8,000 crore. These actions amounted to a systemic dismantling of complex financial laundering operations.
More importantly, the commission pursued figures long considered untouchable. It filed sweeping charges against Mohammed Saiful Alam of S Alam Group for the alleged multi-billion-dollar plundering of Islamic banks. It also pursued former ministers and power-brokers such as Salman F Rahman, uncovering ghost exports and fictitious development funds. For a country whose banking sector has been chronically hollowed out by non-performing loans and crony capitalism, the ACC was performing a form of economic triage.
Momen’s departure carries an irony of its own. He was forced into early retirement by the Awami League in 2013 precisely because of his past association with the late BNP leader Khaleda Zia. More than a decade later, he has again been pushed aside, as per sources in the ACC—this time under a different political dispensation. The forced stepping down of an anti-corruption panel just weeks after it took office reveals something about the new leadership’s priorities. The rhetoric of reform is easily deployed on the campaign trail; the reality of reform is now beginning to unfold.
It remains to be seen whether the new ACC leadership, whoever that is, can work independently and without government interference. The newly elected government campaigned on a promise to restore the rule of law. We hope it does not mark a depressing return to business as usual. The government must ensure that the state’s oversight mechanisms are not treated as mere extensions of the ruling party. Bangladesh’s economy lost billions of dollars over the past decade. The bleeding must now be stopped.
