Defense sector at high risk of corruption:TI

Transparency International (TI), a Berlin-based international organization, says Bangladesh's defense sector is at high risk of corruption. New Zealand is at the lowest risk.

Releasing the Government Integrity Index (GDI), or Government Defense Integrity Index 2020, on Tuesday, the agency said Bangladesh's institutional capacity to fight corruption in the defense sector was "extremely weak", reports a vernacular daily. 

According to the six countries, the defense sector is at risk of high to critical corruption in 72 per cent of the countries. A statement from Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) today highlighted the results of the TI index. Expressing concern over Bangladesh's results in the index, TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said, "The index does not provide any information or analysis on corruption in Bangladesh's defense sector." However, the sector has identified high risk areas for lack of integrity and corruption. The index is based on the risk of corruption in a country's military, overall defense and structure, what kind of institutional policies and practices are in place to reduce the risk, and how effective and accountable they are.

The GDI 2020 Index is based on an analysis of five risk areas in a country's defense sector based on 212 indicators, as opposed to 6 questions. These five risk areas are: political, financial, manpower, management and procurement. In these cases, the number obtained by a country (on a scale of 0 to 100) is arranged in 'A' to 'F' category. 'A' class is the least risky and 'F' class is the least risky for critical corruption. According to the results of the index, New Zealand has the lowest risk of corruption in the defense sector with a score of 85. It is followed by the United Kingdom and Norway (score 6), Belgium and the Netherlands (score 63). With a score of 5, Sudan is at risk of the most critical corruption. It is followed by Egypt (Score 6), Myanmar and Algeria (Score 7) and Iraq (Score 9). TI says, Countries with a low GDI index have weak or non-existent defense mechanisms or activities to prevent corruption in the defense sector. At the same time, these countries are unstable, conflict-ridden or their people are victims of exploitation.

Bangladesh's score is 25

With an overall score of 25, Bangladesh's defense sector is at a very high risk of corruption in this index. Among the five risk areas considered in the index, Bangladesh has the highest score of 52 in military manpower management. And the worst score is 0 (zero) in terms of management risk. Score 28 on political risk, score 19 on financial risk and score 29 on risk of corruption in military procurement. Iftekharuzzaman said, "It is imperative to streamline our defense integrity system with due importance to the outcome of the index and thereby strengthen the anti-corruption capacity structure." In this regard, as a first and foremost step, a Defense Integrity Strategy should be formulated and practiced immediately in a participatory process in line with the National Integrity Strategy 2010. In this case, if the drafting process involves experts in the relevant sector as well as all stakeholders such as political leadership, civil society and the media, its acceptability and sense of national ownership will increase. The GDI findings show that the manner in which defense organizations and their operations are conducted in secret, citing a variety of security risks, is not at all accurate. Rather, privacy is by no means a condition for strong defense and security, it is essentially a political decision. Norway, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have scored higher on the GDI index. This proves that the more participatory and transparent a country's government is, the more transparent the defense sector is and the lower the risk of corruption. Similarly, the comparison of the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index with the GDI score shows that those who have done well in the open government index have also got higher marks in defense sector transparency.

Analysis of the GDI index says that it is related to the increase in military or defense spending and poor governance in the sector. In this case, an increase of 1 percent of GDP in military spending means a decrease of 5 points in the GDI score. This suggests that increasing military spending may play a key role in weak governance. This creates opportunities or risks of corruption using the existing situation, especially the weakness of the regime. Transparency International says it is "disappointing" that global military spending now stands at ২ 2 trillion a year, increasing the level and scale of corruption. According to GDI data, between 2016 and 2020, 8 percent of the global arms trade came from countries whose defense sectors are at risk of moderate to high corruption. The top five exporters are the United States (55), Russia (38), France (50), Germany (60) and China (26). These five countries control 6 percent of the world's arms trade. Again, 49 per cent of the world's total arms imports were from the 'high' to the 'highest risk' of corruption in the defense sector.