Who will raise questions about abuse of government power, negligence or failure? Ordinary people have no power to do anything about it. If they don’t know what’s going on where, they’ll question it—or how?
Recently came across a new term – Gangster Democracy. I can say rogue democracy in Bengali. This word is used to describe the current state of Russia. Russia is a democratic country on paper, with regular elections. I would say fairly free elections.
But the real owner of the country is a very small group, whose clothes are called oligarchs. They do not do anything to stay in power. If you speak against it, you will be jailed for sedition. Tan-blowing thrown from the 42nd floor! Threatening to kill such a person by eating poison.
Russia’s ‘Gangster Democracy’
This work is done by almost all other clan leaders. Think of Syria or Venezuela as examples. But Russia has taken this gangster democracy to such a level that it cannot be called unique or exceptional. His job is to destroy the state’s mint and pet real gangsters. One of these gangsters is Yevgeny Prigoshin.
Three weeks ago he suddenly rebelled against Russia and marched with his army to capture Moscow. His rebellion ended within 24 hours. The interesting thing is that he was not given any punishment for such a terrible crime, on the contrary, he was arranged to stay abroad with his son-in-law Adar. Within a week, it was learned that he had returned to Moscow without going abroad and the head of state himself had a private meeting with him.
I have read in the newspaper that a letter has been sent to the relevant ministry from the concerned department, but the minister could not get up while reading the letter. That is about the month of January. Hopefully, he has taken the time to read the letter these days. Let us inform the readers that the matter is not one or two rupees, but about 600 crore rupees.
So far we have come to know that the man is the owner of a private company called Bhagnar, whose business is to deploy mercenaries abroad. But now I know, no, it is not actually privately owned, it operates under the direct supervision of the Kremlin. Khaikhrach, that too comes from the Kremlin. This brother’s company has earned a reputation for brutality by deploying mercenaries in Syria and several African countries.
They have been so successful in this task that the military government of Mali has removed the UN peacekeeping force there and left the burden of security assurance in their hands. Apart from mercenaries, Prigoshyn and his company have had great success in other activities, and that is to interfere in the elections of various countries.
By Prigoshyn’s own admission, the Internet Research Agency—a company with such an innocuous name that he runs from St. Petersburg—actually aims to snoop on election campaigns in the United States or various European countries. Many believe that Prigoshin’s research agency played a major role for Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election.
Russian President Putin himself has admitted that his government has spent a lot of money to feed Vagnar. After searching Prigoshin’s house, two truckloads of about one billion rubles were found there. The money was initially confiscated but later returned to Prigoshin.
Democracy and Government Accountability
The rogue democracy I am talking about in the Russian example means that the government, which acts in the name of the people, has no responsibility or accountability. The people of the country do not know at all about what is going on, and no one sees any need to inform them. There is no question of taking their consent. Think for a moment, since 2014 Bhagnar has been secretly killing people, the state is providing their expenses for that work. But the people of the country did not even know about Prigoshin’s failed rebellion. If Putin hadn’t said it himself, no one would ever know.
In most countries of the world, the government or the ruling class of the government does many things, which the people of the country do not know or are not informed about. A healthy democratic country has legislative councils, newspapers, civil society organizations to ask questions about this. The US government’s years of lying about the Vietnam War might have remained unknown if the New York Times hadn’t published the Pentagon Papers.
Or if Sergeant Joseph Darby had not exposed the truth at personal risk, we may never have known about the horrific injustices that took place at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. Most recently, a research organization called Pro-Publica reported after a long investigation that US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had been receiving kickbacks from a billionaire friend for years without telling anyone. After the Pro-Publica report, there are now demands for a written code of conduct for Supreme Court judges.
Who will raise questions in Bangladesh?
Who will raise questions about abuse of government power, negligence or failure in the case of Bangladesh? Ordinary people have no power to do anything about it. If they don’t know what’s going on where, they’ll question it—or how? Apart from that, even if the question is raised, the government will see the need for accountability in that regard, is there any reason to think that?
Saying the words; Because, it has recently been known that due to government inefficiency and negligence, various personal information including names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, national identity numbers of millions of people in the country have been leaked from a website of the Bangladesh government. These are highly confidential information, if misused these people can get into big financial or legal trouble. The news was reported through a foreign agency.
If they hadn’t warned about it, we might never have known. The minister of state in charge of the government admitted that there was a technical error, due to which the information was leaked. However, he did not say that he himself or the government had any responsibility in this regard or that there was any negligence in fulfilling the responsibility. They knew that there was a technical error in the designated website. If the confidential information of the citizens of the country is stored there despite knowing it, then someone should be punished for this crime.
Accountability process
Presumably, there is a weakness in data storage, someone in the concerned department knew about it or suspected it. But he did not say anything. One of the reasons for this may be that executives are at risk of losing their jobs if they are held accountable for their failure to fulfill their responsibilities. Or may receive any other official punishment for violation of rules.
One way out of this complication is the introduction of statutory mechanisms for warning. In the United States, there is a provision to appoint an Inspector General to investigate malpractices. A whistleblower is a person who can anonymously or anonymously come to the attention of the Inspector General with evidence of irregularities. That is, he blew the whistle and warned, now the responsible people should take action. There are also legal measures to ensure that these whistleblowers remain anonymous or are not punished.
But only ‘whistleblower’ law will not do, if irregularities are revealed, action should be taken. Since the government itself is the cause of this failure, there is no point in going to the thief’s friend to catch the thief. In this country, that is, in the United States, it is the responsibility of the Legislature, that is, Congress, to do this.
Their responsibility includes monitoring the functioning of the government. Realizing the importance of the matter, they can warn the people of the country. Can enact new laws if necessary. What is very easy to do on the part of the accused is to call the relevant officials to account before the legislative council’s monitoring committee.
Our country also has these regulations more or less, but there is no implementation. One reason for this is that there is no heat among the people about the issues. They are not in a position to discuss these issues in most cases. As long as the country’s media and civil society do not make any fuss about it, no one will give a headache about it. Our policy is not to empower the people of the country, but to make them as powerless as possible.
Waste fertilizers and government irresponsibility
In Bangladesh, there are always many illegal activities, but there is no punishment for it, and there is no initiative to stop the irregularities. A few days ago, the news came out that a transport contractor had stolen billions of rupees worth of imported government fertilizers from Chittagong port.
The responsibility of the company was to bring the fertilizer to the government custody by truck. After a year and a half, it was found that instead of fulfilling their duties, they disappeared the fertilizer. The contractor company that was tasked with transporting the fertilizer is owned by a former member of parliament from the ruling party, a government insider.
Earlier also the same contractor had pilfered the imported fertilizer. Why is the same company given the responsibility again and again? Why is no action taken?
This is probably because the sharing equation involves more or less everyone inside and outside. Apart from that, when the money belongs to Gauri Sen, what is the point of bothering about it?
I have read in the newspaper that a letter has been sent to the relevant ministry from the concerned department, but the minister could not get up while reading the letter. That is about the month of January. Hopefully, he has taken the time to read the letter these days. Let us inform the readers that the matter is not one or two rupees, but about 600 crore rupees.
