Awami League MP, elected from Narail, BM Kabirul Haque on Wednesday said that corruption has become institutionalised in the country. 

“Today the cat of corruption is coming out of the bag. It seems to me that none of us are immune from the impact of this corruption. The main fault lies with the public representatives,” he said.

Haque said this while participating in a discussion on the proposed budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 in the parliament.

He said that there are 350 MPs, and questioned where is the opportunity for them to get involved in corruption.

“My orders do not work… There is no purchase of the government using my words. So how would I do corruption? Those involved in government procurement have the scope to do corruption.”

He said that there are PDs of various government projects.

He questioned how many hundreds of crores of taka does a PD have. 

“I think they are mentally disturbed. They need to be treated. Our time is short. Three million martyrs will curse us if we cannot turn the country into the Golden Bangla as envisioned by the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.”

He said that some people, some officials, some employees or MPs go abroad for medical checkups, go to Mount Elizabeth, Europe, America. 

“Through this, people lose confidence in the healthcare system of our country. If this situation is not overcome, no matter how big a budget we set, it will not be good for the country,” he observed.

Opposition deputy leader Anisul Islam Mahmud said that a country cannot continue in the current situation. 

“It is time to take action on corruption and do a review of the entire system.”

He demanded to make a provision to give an account of the assets of the government employees at the beginning of their service, just as members of the parliament have to give an account of their assets in the affidavit before the election.

Jatiya Party MP, elected from Chattogram, Anisul Islam Mahmud said that now people are seeing how corruption is happening, as institutions are being destroyed. 

“Not everyone is corrupt. But everyone is responsible. This corruption must be stopped.”

Opposing the opportunity to whiten black money, he said, this opportunity is unethical. 

“If illegal income can be legalised with 15 percent tax, then why should others pay taxes?” — he asked.

Anisul Islam said that some cases of corruption have come to the fore recently. “Important persons, heads of institutions have been charged with corruption amounting to hundreds of crores if not thousands of crores of taka.”

Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud said Bangladesh's development progress is talked about in India and Pakistan, but the experts of Bangladesh do not talk about it. “They can only criticise. There are some experts who think that they are not wise if they could not identify what’s wrong.”

The Foreign Minister said, comparing the current budget with the BNP era budget, when the country's budget increases, it means that the country's economy is getting stronger, the country is doing better and the people are benefiting. 

He said that there is a lot of talk about inflation; the whole world is plagued by inflation. “Compared to that, we have less than many countries.”

He gave examples of Pakistan, Russia, Türkiye, Myanmar and Iran.

The foreign minister said that the budget has emphasized reducing inflation. 

“Inflation will come down through budget implementation,” he hoped