‘Right to Information Act 2009’ to Tackle Corruption in Bangladesh: Citizens’ Perception

Abstract

Bangladesh is a democratic country and to ensure democracy the presence of good governance is a must. One of the most colossal hinders in case of ensuring such governance is Corruption.  Today in Bangladesh there is freakish corruption at all levels. The root factor behind corruption is secrecy. If we want to assure transparency, and accountability in government there is a need to crack the corruption by breaking the deep dark chain of secrecy. Right to Information Act, 2009 in that case is an effective weapon to fight against corruption as it creates an opportunity for citizens to cooperate with the officials and institutions to look over the activities of the government. This paper examines the effectiveness of the Right to Information Act, 2009 as a tool for combating corruption in Bangladesh and citizens' perception of this act. Content analysis, case study, and survey research method has been used in this paper. The respondents for the survey were categorized on the basis of registered citizens of two districts in Bangladesh. The results argue that the RTI act can be an effective weapon to battle against corruption in Bangladesh and ensure the right to information for every citizen can accumulate all the development demands. Citizens have also agreed that ratification of the RTI Act in Bangladesh is a bright sign which is dedicated to setting up transparency and accountability in the public and other institutions. It is also seen that there is still lacking cases of knowing the act among the citizens. They don’t know how to use the act properly.