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People are still facing sufferings and corruption while getting services from government offices as they are forced to pay additional money or bribes for the services.

There has been no progress, observers said, in the prevention of the corruption in the service sector even after one year of the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus.

People are still forced to pay money to get services from government offices, including Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, passport offices, land and sub-registrar offices, and the judiciary.

Transparency International Bangladesh executive director Iftekharuzzaman on Monday told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that corruption continued because simply changing the government did not change in people’s habits, which die hard.

‘Rules and regulations continue to be violated with impunity. Those who are responsible for graft in the service sector are not brought to justice,’ he said.

In fact, many of those responsible for ensuring compliance with rules and laws and accountability are among perpetrators, colluders, beneficiaries, and protectors, said Iftekharuzzaman.

The opportunities created for reform processes since the fall of the authoritarian regime remain largely unutilised due to lack of commitment, incapacity, and, not the least, internal resistance from bureaucracy, he added. 

Talking to several land owners in Dhaka, it was found that they were forced to pay additional money to officials of land offices to get mutation of land and other services. 

‘The government fixed-fee is only Tk 1,170 for the mutation of land but Tk 25,000 to Tk 50,000 is required as speed money to get a mutation from the land offices,’ said Mujibur Rahman, a land owner in the Nandipara area.

The file for mutation is kept pending for unusual length of time if additional money was not paid to the officials for mutation, he added. 

Hasanuzzaman, a house owner at Dakshingaon under the Sabujbagh police station in Dhaka said, ‘A minor problem was found with the water meter at my house, but the Dhaka WASA official concerned forced me to install a new meter for TK  12,000 instead of fixing the problem.’

He also alleged that most of the domestic water meters that were provided by the WASA in his area faced problems within one or two years due to their poor quality.

Now WASA officials are charging additional money to replace the meters in the area, he added.

Nasir Uddin, an official of a state-run bank in Dhaka, said, ’After completing the online process, I went to the land office of Rudrapur Mouza in Ashulia last month to pay land tax but I was in a fix as the related official did not receive the land tax showing illegal excuses.’

Later, another official asked me to pay additional money to grease the palm of the official responsible,’ the bank official said, adding that he saw several brokers at the office who were working in exchange for money.

Former ACC director general Moyeedul Islam said that the current government has failed to bring about any visible change that would make the corrupt officials scared as corruption in the government services continues as before.

He also blamed the lack of proper administrative measures, monitoring, and supervision in the offices concerned as well as the failure to take action against corrupt officials for the continuation of graft.

The Anti-Corruption Commission is conducting very few operations and thus the commission is also failing to take effective measures to check graft services, he observed.

Earlier, on May 7, the ACC enforcement Unit conducted simultaneous operations at 35 BRTA offices across the country in response to widespread allegations of irregularities and corruption.

During the operations, the Anti-Corruption Commission caught three brokers red-handed at the Jashore BRTA office while the commission found collusion between BRTA officials, brokers, and nearby computer shop owners at the Sherpur BRTA office.

Service seekers said that brokers — often aided by a section of BRTA staff — prepare driving licences in exchange for extra money while those who refused to pay the money were made to fail in the test at the district office.

An ACC executive magistrate caught red-handed and fined two brokers at the Nilphamari office, while a broker was caught as he demanded Tk 10,500 for each Category-2 driving licence whereas the official fee is only Tk 3,522 (including learner’s card) at the Barishal office.

An ACC official, during an operation, found that a review of exam papers showed that some failed candidates in driving test were marked as ‘passed’ unethically.

In Tangail, when asked about the identity of a man interacting with service seekers, a motor vehicle inspector admitted that the person was not an office employee.

The commission found evidence of bribery for issuing driving licences and fitness certificates at the Gopalganj BRTA office -- gaps in registry entries to facilitate fake licences and excess charges collected through brokers.

An ACC official at the BRTA office in Thakurgaon came across allegations of charging Tk 300 per candidate during the practical test and gave ‘pass score’ to some individuals without their participation in the test at all.

The commission found evidence that two individuals collected extra money from service seekers at the Dinajpur office and they were sentenced to four-day imprisonment each, while two others were given warning for graft.

On August 22, the Chattogram Metropolitan Police withdrew sub-inspector Shahin Bhuiyan from duty as a video showing him taking bribe from a lawyer inside a courtroom office went viral on social media. He was working as a general recording officer at a tribunal in Chattogram Court.

A TIB National Household Survey report released in December 2024, found the Department of Immigration and Passports as the most corrupt service provider as 86 per cent of the households surveyed faced corruption in receiving services.

The BRTA was found to be the second most corrupt service provider as 85.20 per cent respondent faced corruption in receiving services from the authority, while during their interactions with law enforcement agencies, 74.5 per cent of the respondents reported experiencing corruption.

Besides, the fourth most corrupt sector was the judiciary where 62.3 per cent of the households faced corruption, followed by 51 per cent in the land service, 49.1 per cent in the health sector, 44.2 per cent in local government institutes, 41 per cent for NID service, 31.4 per cent for climate change and disaster assistance service, 26.4 per cent for power, 26 per cent for education, 24.5 per cent for agriculture, 17.9 per cent for VAT and taxes, 16.2 per cent for insurance, 9 per cent for banking,  6.5 per cent for NGO service and 11.1 per cent for WASA, online shopping and other services.

The TIB survey also found that almost 71 per cent of the households surveyed faced corruption while getting services in 2023 and 50.8 per cent of the households had to pay bribes to get services.

The survey also said that service seekers paid an estimated Tk 1.46 lakh crore in bribe between 2009 and April 2024 to access essential facilities during the tenure of the Awami League regime.

The survey revealed that service seekers paid Tk 10,902 crore in bribe to access services in 2023, which accounted for 0.22 per cent of the gross domestic product in the financial year 2023-24.

TIB chief Iftekharuzzaman on Monday observed, ‘In such situations, many victims of corruption also come to adopt corruption as a way of life and become agents of corruption instead of resisting, because they hardly have any trust left in the governance and government institutions that carry the legacy of long years of kleptocracy.’

He also said that political forces had also hardly set any example of having taken lesson from the anti-discrimination movement as many of the ‘victors of the movement’ have indulged in all kinds of extortion and abuse of power like partisan control of political and governance space, case-business, arrest-business, bail-business, and swindling of public properties.

Contacted, ACC director general and spokesperson Md Akhtar Hossain said that the commission was conducting regular operation at different offices whenever allegations of corruption were found.