This is at best embarrassing and at worst worrying that Bangladesh has become the 10th most corrupt country in the world with fears whether the newly elected governments pledges for transparency, accountability and good governance would be functioning smoothly if corruption continues unabated.
Our horrific and deteriorating corruption feature was disclosed on Tuesday by the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2023 in which Bangladesh slipped two notches. This is our worst performance in the last 12 years.
Bangladesh was placed 149th among 180 countries with a score of 24 out of 100 against its earlier rank of 147 in 2022.  What is deplorable is that Bangladesh was the 4th most corrupt country among 31 Asia-Pacific countries and second in South Asia, ahead of only Afghanistan.

In contrast, our neighboring country Bhutan continued to score the highest and ranked 26th from the top. Somalia was the most corrupted country while Demark became the least corrupt country in the world scoring 90 out of 100.

Despite the fact that in the latest election manifesto, the ruling Awami League vowed to root out corruption with showing zero tolerance to this ill practice, corruption has been corroding our democratic values, everyday life and development march.
What is most important is that this corruption stigma smeared to our nation has cast a slur on the reputation of Bangladesh in the global stage.
Why is corruption embedded in every tier of our government administration? Who is to blame for this fiasco?
Yes, politicians are in the first place to blame as corruption mostly takes place with the connivance of government officials and political leaders.  TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman rightly said that state institutions, including the Anti-Corruption Commission, are increasingly under political and bureaucratic influence, which is a key factor behind the rising corruption.
Instead of listening to the facts, our government has developed a tendency to play down them without giving a second thought. Evidently, soon after the TIB report on corruption was revealed, AL General Secretary and Road, Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader hit out at it saying the CPI was politically motivated and his government cared little about it.
But this is not the reality. Corruption is rampant in our society. It is known to everyone that corruption has been happening under the very nose of the concerned authorities and agencies which have been charged with carte blanche to combat it.
Now the question is how to improve our CPI. The first and foremost measure should be to break the back of nexus between politicians and government officials and put an end to the impunity culture by bringing the corrupt people to book.
In addition, government agencies like ACC, law enforcers and other monitoring authorities should be empowered and equipped to challenge the influential people.