Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Saturday identified corruption and lack of proper enforcement of law as the main to ensuring good governance in Bangladesh.

He said reducing corruption is possible through ensuring involvement of people in every spheres of the governance and ensuring accountability and transparency of the government.

The minister was addressing a roundtable meeting on good governance in Dhaka as chief guest.

The Cabinet Division of the government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) jointly organised the daylong roundtable, which was attended by representatives from India, the Philippines and Korea along with the senior officials from different ministries of the government.

Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan presided over the meeting, also addressed by Resident Representative of ADB M Teresa Kho.

Muhith pointed out that reducing corruption was possible in every level of the governance through ensuring wider use of the information technology.

Corruption exists in almost every sector in Bangladesh, he said. He termed the police department as the most corrupt body where he said corruption exists in its system, field level and in other areas.

Similarly there is allegation of corruption in land administration, judiciary, tax administration, health and many other sectors, he added.

In Bangladesh about 75 percent cases are related to land disputes and proper land survey system and digitisation of land related data could reduce such legal battles remarkably, he added.

In the function, Teresa Kho said Bangladesh suffers from infrastructural constraints which is the main hurdle to good governance. ADB wants to extend technical support in this regard, she added.

She also suggested bringing a change into the mindset of people who are serving people. She also emphasised on the reconstitution of administration to this effect.

Cabinet Secretary Mosharraf Hossain pointed out what the government has done in last three years to ensure good governance.

The government has formed an independent Anti Corruption Commission, ensured separation of Judiciary from the executive, passed the rights to information act, formed Information Commission and National Human Rights Commission, strengthened Election Commission and also working to enact Consumers’ Rights Protection Act to establish good governance, he added.

Chairman of ACC, Golam Rahman, Chief Information Commissioner, Mohammad Jamir, among others, were also present on the occasion.

The Daily Sun/ Bangladesh/ 20th May 2012