'No basis for Home Minister's statement about TIB report'
Graphics: Agamir Somoy
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has claimed that there is no basis for Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed's statement that "TIB only prepares reports based on newspaper clippings."
The organization said dismissing TIB reports outright as "newspaper clipping-dependent" is not only illogical but also a failed attempt to sidestep the core issues.
Earlier on Saturday, TIB published a report titled "100 Days of Government After the 13th National Parliament Election: Monitoring the Establishment of Good Governance and Implementation of Anti-Corruption Commitments." The report evaluated various aspects of the BNP government's first 100 days in office.
In response to journalists' questions about the report on Monday, Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed said, "TIB is not a government agency. They do not conduct any field-level investigation or judgment; they simply prepare reports based on newspaper clippings. Therefore, there is no scope to comment on the reliability of this report."
Meanwhile, TIB views the Home Minister's remarks, parliamentary discussions, and police authorities' reactions as positive. In a press release on Tuesday, the organization stated that these responses would help make their efforts more fruitful in various ways.
Explaining its position, TIB said, "The minister correctly stated that TIB does not conduct investigations. TIB is not an investigative agency; rather, it is an organization that works on research-based anti-corruption and good governance advocacy, public awareness, and public engagement-driven change."
The press release added that TIB follows nationally and internationally recognized statistical methods for collecting qualitative and quantitative data in social science research, gathering information from various direct and indirect sources. The information is then verified through a multi-dimensional process and analyzed to produce reports.
TIB claimed that the report on law and order used data from Bangladesh Police and three well-known human rights organizations as sources, which are clearly mentioned in the report. Therefore, the Home Minister's statement that TIB reports are prepared solely based on newspaper clippings has no basis.
