Bangladesh Expands Anti-Corruption Committees To Grassroots Union Level

Bangladesh is set to decentralise its anti-graft campaign by extending the jurisdiction of its Anti-Corruption Committees (Duprok) to the lowest tier of local government. Provisioned under the newly proposed budget for the 2026-27 financial year, this structural expansion will integrate the Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) institutional outreach directly into rural communities. Currently restricted to metropolitan, district, and upazila levels, the expansion aims to establish a robust social defence mechanism against institutional malpractice at the grassroots level.

ACC officials and civil society leaders anticipate that shifting these watchdog frameworks to union levels will significantly increase public engagement. By involving local communities, the initiative seeks to foster an enduring culture of integrity, transparency, and good governance across rural Bangladesh.

Strict Selection Criteria and Structural Governance

According to the statutory constitution of the ACC, each union-level committee will comprise seven members. The structure dictates a leadership hierarchy headed by a chairperson, alongside necessary executive members. To ensure gender parity and inclusive representation, the regulations mandate that at least one-third of the committee members must be women. Members will be selected exclusively from amongst the most upright, socially conscious, and civic-minded volunteers within the respective communities.

To shield these bodies from political interference or nepotism, the ACC has instituted stringent disqualification criteria. Under the commission’s charter, several categories of individuals are explicitly barred from holding committee positions:

• Foreign nationals and active members of political parties.

• Elected local public representatives and salaried public servants.

• Individuals declared legally insane by a court of law.

• Bankrupted individuals and certified loan defaulters.

• Persons currently accused of or previously convicted of criminal offences.

ACC Secretary Mohammad Khaled Rahim emphasised that legal retribution and punitive measures alone are insufficient to eradicate deeply entrenched corruption. He stated that the principal objective of this rural expansion is to build civic awareness. Combining rigorous law enforcement with widespread social resistance is viewed by the commission as the most viable path toward sustainable corruption prevention.

Oversight for Marginalised Welfare Programmes

Data retrieved from the ACC’s official records shows that existing district and metropolitan committees operate with a maximum of 13 members, whilst upazila committees are capped at nine. Throughout 2025, over 500 of these committees were active across the country. Their collective outreach included conducting more than 1,500 discussion forums, 1,000 debate competitions, and hundreds of public rallies and seminars aimed at public sensitisation.

Welcoming the structural shift, Dr Iftekharuzzaman, the Executive Director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), termed the initiative a positive move towards building mass awareness. However, he urged an impartial review of past committee models before full implementation. He observed that if the state learns from past structural weaknesses to build a neutral framework, the probability of the project’s success would increase substantially.

The TIB chief noted that rural citizens stand to gain the most from these grassroot watchdogs. Specifically, the presence of localized oversight could mitigate bribery and misappropriation frequently reported in essential public services. These include the distribution of old-age allowances, widow pensions, safety-net allocation schemes, and subsidised agricultural inputs.