* the Pattern of Foreign Trade & Its Contribution to the Revenue ; a Case Study of Pubali Bank Bd Chapter I: Introduction 1.1.0 Background of the Study: Banks Play an Important Role in the Business Sector and Promoting

1
Political Corruption and the Bangladesh Customs System
Md Almas Uzzaman1
Monash Asia Institute
Monash University Melbourne Australia [e-mail], [e-mail]
Abstract: The Bangladesh Customs Department is the gatekeeper for imported items.
Its employees enjoy a monopoly in discharging their highly technical services in customs clearance procedures. The employees are in a position to apply their discretionary powers for their personal benefit through unfair practices that jeopardise international trade. The customs brokers are also willing participants in corruption, as part of the process of becoming rich. They use their special relations with the political leaders of Bangladesh in order to pressure the customs bureaucracy. The political leaders connive at this in order to make easy money, which cannot be traced. This paper addresses the question of how these activities create barriers to fair trade and the implications of this for a country like Bangladesh, which, amongst other things, depends on technology imports to meet development goals. Key words: International trade, political corruption, bureaucracy, hidden barriers, customs clearance, customs brokers. 2
1 I am grateful to my supervisor Professor Marika Vicziany for her advice in preparing this paper. All remaining errors are mine alone. 2 This paper was presented to the 18th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia in Adelaide, 5-
8 July 2010. It has been peer reviewed via a double referee process and appears on the Conference Proceedings
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Introduction: Bureaucracy is an essential part of government. Political masters are mandated to formulate policy for the betterment of a country, and the bureaucracies are to implement these policies (Asakura, 2003; Choi, 2007). Politically powerful leaders sometimes attempt to interfere in bureaucratic functions (Furlong, 1998). The customs system of Bangladesh is one of the government

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