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Parliamentary probe committee vs. Sircar
A. Mannan
At the outset let us highlight a few salient features of our Parliament. Parliament, in a nutshell, has three functions:
( i ) Enactment of Legislation.
(ii) Consent to taxation and control of public expenditure. (iii) Ensuring accountability of the Govt.
Constitutional provisions and Parliament Secretariat:
Article 79(1) of the Constitution provides, inter alia, the following:
(1) Parliament shall have its own Secretariat.
(ii) Parliament may, by law, regulate the recruitment and conditions of service of persons appointed to its Secretariat.
(iii) Until provision is made by Parliament, the President may...make rules regulating the recruitment...shall have effect subject to the provisions of any law.
Sovereignty of Parliament: Parliament is supreme and sovereign and its committees or subcommittees also play the role of a mini-parliament.
Parliament Secretariat under Act 1994 encompasses the following:
(i) The Parliament Secretariat is not under administrative control of any Ministry.
(ii) Salaries and allowances of officers and staff are charged expenditure upon the Consolidated Fund.
(iii) Speaker approves Parliament Secretariat's budget after advice has been taken from Parliament Secretariat Commission.
(iv) The Commission advises regarding manpower budget, creation and abolition of posts etc.
(v) Speaker is invested with all financial powers of the Secretariat and hence he is accountable to Parliament.
As Parliament is an institution, Speaker does also play the role of an institution by virtue of his position.
The Parliamentary Committee, the case in point:
On March 16, 2009 Speaker Advocate A. Hamid told Parliament in an unscheduled debate on Barrister Mohammad Jamiruddin Sircar, former Speaker of Parliament and a BNP candidate for the Bogra-6 Constituency as of then in the upcoming bypolls, "As demanded by some of the MPs I will form a probe committee within two to three days and place the proposal in the House. He further said, "As most of the MPs have talked about the corruption of Mohammad Jarniruddin Sircar by name, the committee will only investigate the alleged corruption of Mr Sircar".
On March 19, 2009, however, a Parliamentary Committee with Chairman Advocate Fazle Rabbi Mia and 10 other Members of Parliament was constituted by the Speaker with the following terms of reference:
(I) To investigate the alleged charges against former Speaker Barrister Mohammad Jamiruddin Sircar on account of corruption, violation of appointment rules through misuse of power and misuse of Govt. funds.
(ii) To investigate relevant other allegations" of the Parliament Secretariat.
(iii) To investigate all found to be involved in the said corruption, irregularities and misuse of Govt. funds.
(iv) To investigate for any irregularities, misuse of power and misuse of Govt. fund from July 12, 2001 to October 28, 2001 when the present Speaker was the Speaker.
The following points may stir up our minds:-
(a) It relates only to alleged corruption of former Speaker Sircar.
(b) Any person might have been involved in the said corruption.
(c) In the case of former Speaker Sircar, the wordings are 'al1eged corruption, violation of appointment rules by misuse of power and misuse of Govt. fund. On the other hand, the proposed investigation for the period from July 12, 2001 to October 28, 2001 will be the same as that in (i) above 'corruption' i.e. a little digress.
(d) To investigate alleged corruption of former Dy. Speaker Akhter Hamid Siddique and former Chief Whip Khondaker Delwar Hossain is not a straight forward matter for inclusion in the agenda of the said Parliamentary Committee formed on March 19, 2009 specially due to the word 'relevant in (ii) above.
Formation and number of Committees as per the Constitution and the Rules of' Procedure (R.O. P.): Article 76(1) of the Constitution says, regarding formation of Standing Committees as:
(a) a Public Accounts Committee
(h) Committee of Privileges; and
(c) such other standing committees as the rules of procedure of Parliament require".
Art 76(2) of the Constitution provides, "In addition to the Committees referred to in clause (1). Parliament shall appoint other Standing Committees..."
Art 76(2) says, "Parliament may by law confer on Committees appointed under" this Article powers for --
(a) enforcing the attendance of witnesses and examining them on oath, affirmation or otherwise:
(b) compelling the production of documents.''
ROP, however, prescribes 12 Standing Committees and in addition under rule 246 of ROP Standing Committee for every Ministry, thus number is variable, and also under rule 266 Special Committee for specific terms of reference, again number varies depending upon motions adopted in Parliament.
Art 76 (2) of Constitution says, "other Standing Committees' and rule 266 of ROP mentions a standing committee for each Ministry--- a contradiction between the two. I submitted a Constitution Amendment Bill in 2003, which could never proceed beyond a certain stage, to do away with the anomalies. The point is highlighted here to emphasise that as per ROP no other standing committee other than those prescribed in the ROP is possible whereas as per Constitution it is:-
Nature of Committees:- Some of Committees are standing committees and some others may be ad hoc e.g. Special Committees under rule 266 of ROP are ad hoc ones, such as (a) select committee for a specific bill (b) a special committee as per resolutions passed through motion in Parliament.
The Parliamentary Committee of March 19, 2009:- It has to be a special one under rule 266 of R.O.P and it is, therefore, an ad hoc committee. It has specific terms of reference as laid down in the resolution for the motion so adopted and there is no scope to tread beyond that.
As per Art 76 (3), the Parliamentary Committee, under reference, can only enforce attendance of witnesses and as per rules 203 and 205 of ROP the said committee can send for witnesses, in both instances the committee can not send for the alleged accused, if any. Though the said committee is virtually a mini version of Parliament it can only enforce attendance of witnesses under Art 76 (3) of' the Constitution or can only send for witnesses due to limiting factors of its power as have been conferred upon.
To send for a person no less than that of former Speaker, the post he held, and deemed to be an institution by itself, is incomprehensible. It does not mean that some one is above law. Even an institution is to incur liability for any corruption and abuse of power.
Analysis of Corruptions, misuse or abuse:
Broadly we may critically and pragmatically analyse the whole gamut as follows:-
(a) Intellectual dishonesty
(b) Pecuniary dishonesty
(c) Abuse of power or misuse of Govt. funds.
The nature of alleged charges levelled against former Speaker Sircar may hardly be categorized under (a) and (b) above. Subject to proper Audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG's) office one does not have to be categorical to utter words like "misuse of power and misuse of Govt. funds".
The present Speaker was right when he on March 16, 2009 said, "He would instruct the CAG's office to audit accounts of all Speakers in a first such instance in Bangladesh". Meanwhile as we have understood he has appreciably done so.
The Committee's Liberty:
The Parliamentary Committee is at its liberty with responsibility to face the media, specially the electronic, but any pre-emptive measures, initiated by it before CAG's audit report and follow-up procedures within the precincts of law may not be a prudent approach in such intricacy of the alleged matter for a person as that of an institution, for once maligned, his reputation once gone downhill, though far from proof as yet, can hardly be restored. That is why Bernard Shaw said, "Liberty means responsibility and that is why most people dread it".
Vacation of Parliamentary Seat: It has been observed in the electronic media that many members including Chairman suggested that they would recommend vacation of Parliamentary seat of Sircar. Art 67(1)(d) of the Constitution says, "If he has incurred a disqualification under Art-66(2)" and the most relevant segment of Art 66(2)(d) in this case says "has been on conviction for a criminal offence involving moral turpitude, sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than two years, unless a period of 5 years has elapsed since his release." How can Parliament or the Parliamentary Committee recommend for vacation of seat for alleged corruption, yet to be proven? Technically and constitutionally conviction for imprisonment for a term of less than 2 years can not be supportive of vacation of seat any way. It is tantamount to putting the cart before the horse.
Suggestions:
(i) Not to send for an alleged accused to the Committee's meeting.
(ii) To institute an impromptu audit by CAG's office as promised by the Speaker for the Parliament Secretariat since 1972 till date.
(iii) To differentiate in the right perspective amongst issues of lack of pecuniary integrity, misuse of power, misuse of Govt. fund and irregularities. It may be noted here that in most of the appointment cases by Governments/Departments/ Corporations etc. hardly district quota is being followed in its right form. Even some of the job aspirants also provide fake district address to circumvent district quota.
(iv) To ensure that every one obeys the dictates of the Constitution and follows rules of R.O.P. involved either in the proceedings of Parliament or in discharging the duties of the Parliament Secretariat.
In fine, let us not ruin an institution and not intend to do so by inadvertent approaches, actions and mistaken or not take advantage due to inadequacies in the procedures and laws that will invariably tarnish the image of our Parliament.
[The writer is former State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism and Textiles. He is a former Member of Parliament.]
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Candid thoughts
Mohiuddin Babar
A French wanderer once wrote that this land has hundreds of gates for entry but not one for exit. He made this observation after visiting several places in this country and being charmed with the treasures of nature, simplicity of the people, historic relics and so forth. It is not known what exactly convinced the French traveller to conclude such an observation but similar sentiments were echoed by several other people from distant lands who came here on various missions. It is undeniable that Bangladesh has several charms, mostly nature related, to attract foreign tourists but the country's identity as a good tourism destination is absolutely at the bottom. Obviously, there are many missing links.
Tourism is one of the most vibrant sectors in the field of social and economic activities in the world. It is also dubbed as the largest employer with nearly ten per cent of the global workforce engaged in direct and indirect tourism operations ranging from travel to accommodation to cottage industries producing indigenous artefacts and souvenirs. In many countries, tourism is the key foreign exchange earner.
In Bangladesh, tourism development has been at very low ebb and despite having enormous potentials this sector has always been sidelined due to lack of political will and failing to comprehend its economic worth. It is unfortunate that in the comparative landscape of the countries having similar socio-economic status, Bangladesh ranks far below in pulling tourists. The basic reasons encompass poor infrastructure but the major setback is the failure to expose the potentials or attractions.
While related infrastructure development is a pre-requisite for tourism growth, effective communication does hold the cardinal key to bring in tourists. It is true that Bangladesh is often referred to as a poverty stricken, natural disasters-prone and socio-politically unstable country. However, these are facts but should these vault the potentials which can greatly off-set the negative propaganda. Vietnam could be a case in point. This country having been traumatized by a war for several years and with lesser resources than ours, is today a hot spot for tourism. According to the World Tourism Organization, Vietnam ranks sixth in the world among countries with fastest rate of tourism growth. Even a decade ago, this country was known as only a war-battered country. The secret of this success has been the emphasis given on appropriate infrastructure development and thorough implementation of those projects.
Along with this, there has been a massive projection campaign in the region with professional sofistication. As a result, most of the tourist arrivals in Vietnam are from Japan, Korea, China, Australia and Taiwan.
The World Tourism Organization has predicted that bulk of the tourists in the global market will come from India and China in the next ten years. In the backdrop of the current recession, the traditional trend of massive tourists flow in Europe will be hard hit and that regional or short haul tourism will flourish. Here in lies the opportunity for Bangladesh to tap the tourists flow from the neighbouring countries or those in the Asian region.
The Minister in charge of the Tourism and Aviation Ministry has recently spoken of revamping the country's lacklustre tourism organization known as Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation. He has stated that it would be turned into Tourist Development Authority and he certainly meant to make it vibrant and befitting. He has also unfolded plans to develop tourist hot spots like Cox's Bazar to upgrade it as an international tourist attraction. Certainly, these are dynamic plans but the secret of success will remain in proper branding or aggressive marketing of the potentials. Otherwise, mere changing the name will not do any thing positive it will only be old wine in a new bottle.
babar.mohiuddin@gmail.com
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DSE suggests fund raising from stock market for dev projects
Holiday Report
The Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) has suggested that the Government should involve individual investors in the public-private partnership (PPP) budget through raising funds from the stock market for development projects.
"Public-private partnership would be the best mechanism to collect finances instead of foreign aid," DSE president Md Rakibur Rahman told a press briefing at the DSE building in Dhaka city on Wednesday.
He said, "The government should involve the stock market in raising funds for the projects to be implemented under the planned PPP budget for the betterment of the country's capital market."
The DSE chief suggested the government to give up the tendency of bank-based economy and make all-out effort to mobilise investment in the stock markets.
The DSE, the country's premier bourse, also suggested a number of other fiscal measures to revitalise and stabilise the country's stock market.
"We propose that the government in the next national budget reduce the corporate tax for the listed banks, insurance companies and non-bank financial institutions to 35 per cent from the existing 45 per cent," the DSE president said.
DSE Chairman also suggested the government to withdraw the condition for mobile phone operator companies that they have to offload 10 per cent of their paid-up capital to avail the tax rebate.
"We have suggested for the withdrawal of the condition as other companies except banks, insurance companies and non-bank financial institutions enjoy tax rebate facility by offloading any amount of shares of their paid-up capitals," Rakibur said.
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