Staff Correspondent

The Anti-Corruption Commission is functioning like a prosecuting agency and will face challenges when the state of emergency is lifted, Regulatory Reforms Commission chairman Akbar Ali Khan has said.

‘ACC is now filing cases under the Emergency Powers Rule.

But what will they do after the withdrawal of the state of emergency?’ he said Thursday, while launching two policy prescriptions on the corruption watchdog and the Public Service Commission at a city hotel.

‘The ACC will have to work under the ordinary laws after the withdrawal of the state of emergency. Because, the state of emergency will not continue forever,’ said Akbar, former adviser to the caretaker government.

Comparing emergency with ‘anti-biotic’, he said the high-powered medicine cannot be given for a long time. ‘Working under the normal laws will be very difficult for ACC as they will then face more challenges for carrying out anti-corruption drives,’ Akbar added.

The ACC is working like a prosecuting office, which the police do, not as a quasi-judicial body, and such role will demoralise the bureaucracy and impede progress of the nation.

Talking about absorbing officials of the previous Bureau of Anti-Corruption into the ACC, he said the commission has taken up so many works to do and does not have enough time to organise its house.

‘Some 90 per cent of the bureau people were corrupts and initially there was a decision that none of them will be absorbed in the new organisation,’ he added.

He suggested creation of two divisions at the ACC– one for dealing with the old cases filed during the bureau era and the other for looking after new cases filed after the formation of ACC. ‘Instead of doing that the ACC has mixed up its activities.’

Speaking on the function, Public Service Commission chairman Saadat Hossain said that the commission would have the same fate as the defunct bureau and expressed the fear that a large number of corrupt people would go scot-free as proper legal procedures were not followed in framing charges against the corruption suspects.

‘They are still struggling to accommodate the bureau people, all of them should have been thrown out,’ he said about absorbing the bureau people in the commission The Institute of Governance Studies at BRAC University launched the notes on its series on the institutions of accountability. Pro-vice chancellor of BRAC University Dr Salehuddin Ahmed and director of the institute Manziir Hasan also spoke on the occasion.

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