Transparency International Bangladesh executive director Iftekharuzzaman, regarding reforms in the Anti-Corruption Commission, said that the interim government had failed to remove obstacles to effective ACC reforms and had neglected the immediately implementable reforms due to the bureaucracy.

According to his observation, Bangladesh has emerged from 16 years of entrenched kleptocracy in which corruption, abuse of power, and non-accountability became core features of governance.

He said that the July 2024 uprising reflected public rejection of this system and raised hopes for a transparent, accountable state.

However, he said that those hopes had largely been shattered, as, he observed, immediately after the Awami League regime’s ouster, new vested interests moved in to occupy political and administrative spaces, grabbed land, engaged in extortion, filed false cases, and captured institutions with politically motivated appointments and promotions.

The interim government, he further said, has failed to resist these trends and neglected reform commissions’ meaningful recommendations on implementable reforms, including those on strengthening the Anti-Corruption Commission.

According to him, the interim government has taken some symbolic steps but major proposals such as setting up an independent ‘selection and review committee’ for the ACC have been dropped, mainly due to resistance from the bureaucracy.

Iftekharuzzaman described the bureaucracy as the biggest obstacle to effective reforms in the ACC. Raising concerns, he said that none of the 15 ACC-related short-term implementable reforms, also listed in the July National Charter, had been implemented.

Proposals to reduce bureaucratic control, establish independent investigation mechanisms in the ACC, and adopting the Common Reporting Standard to curb money laundering have also been ignored.

He also said that the hope for making the ACC a constitutional body seemed to be fading as one of the major political parties opposed this recommendation.