Bangladesh PM pledges to boost anti-corruption effort

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Tuesday her government would strengthen the drive against corruption, a problem that has kept some would-be investors and aid donors away from the impoverished country.

"We are pledge-bound to remove corruption from the country," Hasina's Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad quoted her as telling the departing World Bank country director, Xian Zhu.

The global corruption watchdog Transparency International rated Bangladesh the world's most corrupt nation for five years until 2005 and it is still considered endemic in the South Asian nation of more than 140 million people.

Hasina said to Zhu during a farewell call that her government would strengthen Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to remove grafts from the country, Azad told reporters.

The World Bank and other donors have been vocal critics of corruption and supported an anti-graft drive by the army-backed "interim authority" that ruled the country for two years, until a new government led by Hasina was elected in December last year.

The interim authority her administration replaced had taken charge in January 2007 following deadly political violence. It reconstituted the ACC and lunched a drive against corruption.

Hasina and her rival former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia, of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, were among hundreds of politicians and others then detained for alleged corruption. They were released on parole or bail before the election.

The chief of the ACC under the interim authority, retired lieutenant-general Hasan Mashud Chowdhury, resigned in April, citing personal reasons and "changed circumstances".

Some top members of Hasina's government welcomed the move, saying the ACC had harassed politicians in the name of fighting graft.

But other officials and analysts said Chowdhury stepped down over concern the ACC would have a difficult time operating independently under the new government, and questioned its anti-corruption commitment.