Corruption plagues battle against pandemic

Frauds by Mohammad Shahed and Dr. Sabrina are just a tip of iceberg of corruption during Covid-19 pandemic in Bangladesh (Photo: tbsnews.net)

With more than 14.7 million infections and 610,000 deaths in over seven months, COVID-19 could well be a catalyst for social, political and economic changes for good in the world.

Sadly, it has done little to nothing to trigger any positive outcome by eliminating social evils like corruption, both individual and institutional, in the national and global orders heavily dominated by extreme globalization and crony-capitalism.

Corruption costs a staggering US$3.6 trillion each year, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said in 2018. Corruption in global health sectors is estimated at $455 billion annually, the highest, according to Berlin-based Transparency International.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, corruption has emerged in diverse and innovative forms at the expense of human lives.

Somalia, currently the world's most corrupt country, has seen medical equipment being stolen from hospitals and sold in markets openly.

Zimbabwe sacked its health minister for the purchase of low-quality testing kits. Greek police are investigating a hospital for releasing elderly patients before they had recovered from COVID-19 so that it could admit new patients for more income.

In March, police in London arrested a man for selling counterfeit testing kits. Recently, a hospital in Amritsar, India, has been accused of issuing fake COVID-19 positive certificates to healthy people to earn big money.

However, Bangladesh has moved extra miles in innovative and massive corruption. From buying substandard medical equipment to the distribution of food and cash aid to poor people, corruption has engulfed the entire COVID-19 response system in this South Asian country.

Last week authorities arrested Mohammad Shahed, owner of the private Regent hospitals in Dhaka, for issuing fake COVID-19 reports, positive and negative, to more than 6,000 people out of about 10,000 tested. When COVID-19 struck Bangladesh in March, the Health Ministry signed an agreement with Shahed that allowed COVID-19 testing.

Law enforcers found his hospitals didn't renew licenses after 2014, violated the government agreement by charging 3,500 taka ($43) from each patient instead of free testing while placing bills with the ministry, stored expired medicines and injections and prepared COVID-19 reports without testing swabs collected from patients.

The revelation has sent shockwaves nationally and globally as hundreds of expatriate workers from Europe, America and Asia have obtained fake certificates and returned to their places of work. Countries including Italy and Japan banned flights from Bangladesh, while Italy deported flights with hundreds of Bangladeshi migrants onboard.

Shahed is now accused in a series of criminal offenses and consequent lawsuits including cheating, check forgery and money laundering. For years, he has been a regular face on TV talk shows and was allegedly a member of the ruling Awami League.

His social media profile is full of photographs with prominent personalities including President Abdul Hamid, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, ministers, top military and police officials, showing he wielded considerable influence before his frauds were exposed.

Similarly, a top government doctor and her husband were arrested for issuing fake coronavirus certificates to most of the 15,000 people tested.

JKG Healthcare, owned by Dr. Sabrina Alam and Ariful Chowdhury, also had an agreement with the Health Ministry for COVID-19 testing and it made big money by faking so-called voluntary health services in Dhaka and neighboring Narayanganj district, two major coronavirus hotspots.

Almost all global media reported the COVID-19 test scam in Bangladesh and The New York Times headlined it "Big Business in Bangladesh: Selling Fake Coronavirus Certificates."

Moreover, the government's scheme to offer cash aid to five million poor people has stalled following allegations of corruption and the authorities have suspended more than 100 government officials and politicians for anomalies in food subsidy scheme. The secretary of the Health Ministry was transferred as a consequence of incompetent handling of the crisis.

Public and media pressure over the fake certificate scam was too much for the government that it forced Dr. Abul Kalam Azad, the powerful but much-criticized chief of the Directorate General of Health Services, to resign on July 22.

The action against Shahed, Sabrina and Azad might just be a window-dressing ploy because their role is only the tip of the iceberg. Corruption in Bangladesh has been a major social problem for decades.

The country was ranked the most corrupt country by Transparency International for five consecutive years from 2001-2005 and now ranks 146th among 180 countries.

Despite the formation of the Anti-Corruption Commission in 2004, government control has prevented it from effectively investigating and preventing graft.

And now corruption in the time of COVID-19 has tarnished the nation's image globally in the worst possible manner. It is absolutely shocking that a nation which recorded over 200,000 confirmed cases and over 2,700 deaths could make coronavirus a bad joke with ridiculous failures to curb corruption.

With about a quarter of more than 160 million people classified as poor, Bangladesh is one of world's poorest nations, but it is also has one of highest rates of wealth inequality.

A New York-based research firm predicated in 2019 that Bangladesh would record the third-fastest growth in the number of millionaires in five years.

Corruption is anti-poor, discriminatory and degenerating.

Moreover, there is a strong connection between corruption and the widening gulf between the rich and the poor.

It denies social and economic dividends to millions of honest and hardworking people who toil with sweat, tears and blood in agricultural fields to feed the nation, garment workers who stitch clothes for global markets and expatriate workers who remit billions of dollars back home to keep the economy running.

This is so unfair and deplorable.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its casualties must trigger a much-needed awakening to denounce corruption in every sphere of our lives by recognizing that corruption results from greed, which must be stopped.

Original Article: 

Corruption plagues battle against pandemic