With the slogan ‘The invincible youth shall surely resist corruption’, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) and Bangladesh Debate Federation (BDF) jointly organized a two-day Parliamentary Style Debate Competition at school level during 28-29 March at Willes Little Flower School & College. Advocate Sultana Kamal, Executive Director of Ain O shalish Kendro & Treasurer of TIB Board of Trustees was present as chief guest in the inaugural programme. Organized on the theme ‘corruption and good governance’, the programme was divided into two sessions. The training session was held in the first half of the programme. Prominent debaters discussed about the rules & regulations, and the aestheticism of debate and theories of parliamentary debate. After completion of Barowary (Free Style) Debate, a total twenty top scorer qualified for the parliamentary style debate. At the closing ceremony M. Hafizuddin Khan, chairman of TIB Board of Trustees was present as chief guest while Dr. Abdun Noor Tushar, President of Bangladesh Debate Federation and Lt. Colonel Mohammad Moinul Islam Chowdhury, Principal of Willes Little Flower School and College were the special guests. A student of class eight from St. Gregory High School Souvik Kundu won the Best Debater award. Through this competition the young debaters pledged to make a corruption free nation.

TIB organized a Round Table on Role of Women MPs in Good Governance at BRAC Centre Inn in Dhaka on 7 March to mark the International Women’s Day. Begum Matia Chowdhury, Minister of Agriculture attended the round table as the chief guest while Whip Shagufta Yasmin Emili attended as special guest. The Minister said, “Good governance can be established through democracy and stable environment. It is not the question of male or female but only honest person is needed to establish good governance. It is true that there is no acknowledgement of work of women from home to politics. So we should change our attitude for women’s development.” TIB submitted a set of recommendations for strengthening the contribution of women to establish good governance. The report titled Role of Women MPs in Good Governance was presented by Fatema Afroze, assistant fellow of TIB.

TIB & the Department of Mass Communication & Journalism, University of Dhaka jointly organized a three-day training on Investigative Journalism at BARD, Comilla during 29-31 March. Twenty one journalists working in both print & electronic media have participated. The main purpose of this training was to develop professional skill of the journalists and to inspire them in writing of investigative report on corruption and governance issues. The faculties of Dhaka University & experts working in the field played the role as resource persons. Executive Director of TIB Dr. Iftekharuzzaman, Chairperson of the Department of Mass Communication & Journalism Dr. Gitiara Nasrin, Convener of CCC-Comilla Mr. Badrul Huda Jenu, Associate Professor of University of Dhaka Mr. Robayet Ferdous, lecturers of the same department and the members of CCC were present.

BTTB has transformed into BTCL but the services are not yet up to standard. The clients are still being harassed from different irregularities and corruption as earlier. BTCL should be made effective and free from corruption, the discussants opined in the roundtable organized to release the report of a diagnostic study conducted by TIB on BTCL at the CIRDAP auditorium, Dhaka on 23 March. The research findings showed that besides institutional limitations many irregularities and corruption prevails in BTCL. According to the research, in order to get connection, payment of bills, transfer of connection and others services bribe has become a very common practice. The research also showed that in order to get connection 66% clients had to pay 6,000 taka on average, to settle flawed bill from 50 to 2,000 taka and 71% clients for transfer of connection paid 2,050 taka on average as bribe. At the same time, promotion and transfer on the basis of political lobbying, irregularities in training, transportation, project and auditing, CBA leaders’ corruption, money embezzlement through fraud bill, recruitment of illegal labor, and spending beyond the allocated budget exist in BTCL. Indeed, ministry’s interference on board, procrastination in decision making, recruitment of short term chairman, lack of adequate human resources, usage of old machines, pending tax, absence of customer care centre, lack of publicity, limitation of citizen’s charter, illegal VOIP these institutional limitations reign in BTCL. In order to improve these situations TIB set forth a series of recommendations notable among them: forming a board of directors with experts on telecommunication, management, business and administration, preventing interference of ministry’s in managing the activity of BTCL as public limited company etc.