TIB rebukes minister over claim ‘consensual roadside collections are not extortion’

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has criticised the transport minister’s description of roadside collections as “compromise-based transactions”, calling it an “attempt to legitimise a serious criminal offence”.

In a statement issued on Friday, the local chapter of the Berlin-based Transparency International, a global anti-corruption organisation, voices both concern and condemnation over the remarks.

The remarks came on Thursday afternoon at the Secretariat, when the Road Transport and Bridges Minister Shaikh Rabiul Alam discussed with journalists about the collection of money from vehicles on roads. 

He said he does not consider money taken on a “negotiated basis” from road users as extortion, but added that money collected by force cannot be called extortion, saying “there is no scope for such extortion”.

In this context, TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said in the statement: “The definition of extortion put forward by the transport minister stands in complete contradiction to the firm anti-corruption stance that he and nearly every member of the cabinet have pledged upon assuming office.”

He noted that less than 48 hours after pledges in the ruling party’s election manifesto and the head of government’s address to the nation to rein in corruption, remarks seen as protective of what he described as the cancer of extortion in the transport sector have caused dismay.

Iftekharuzzaman said invoking owner and worker welfare as justification is “misleading” and effectively shields a longstanding disorder in the sector.

The statement warned that if roadside extortion is accepted under the guise of consensual transactions, the same logic could be applied in other sectors.

TIB urged that if the government’s electoral pledges are not “empty rhetoric”, the minister’s remarks should be officially rejected and accountability ensured through proper channels.