Information is like a weapon to fight against corruption. One of the basic rights of all individuals is access to information. For a business person, trade information is a vital element for the development of entrepreneurship as well as to avoid corruption if some one faces any problem of corruption. So proves the case of Ms. Sharmin Hasan Bony.
Bony, a women entrepreneur of Khulna, runs a Boutique business named “Sawpno Choan Boutique”. Since her childhood she has been sincere and artistic. Using her creative skills she started her own business but when she wanted to expand and regularize it she came across some problems. As a member of BWCCI, she participated in various awareness building trainings and gained many important business related information. With the help of her newly gained knowledge and skills, Bony was able to face the problems in her way to success. Among them one is mention worthy how she tackled a corruption related problem.
On 6 March, 2011 she went to the local City Corporation Office to process her trade license but she was asked for extra charge. She knew the fee for issuing a trade license is much less of what the officer was telling her. So asked for additional charge, she reacted upon this saying it is not legal to ask or give extra money to get it. The officer did not pay heed to her and denied any assistance. The same day she went to BWCCI’s Anti Corruption Hotline Centre to check the information about Trade license which she learnt from participating in Anti corruption training. The next day, she went to the City Corporation Office again and being asked for extra money for trade license again, she showed her BWCCI Membership ID to the concerned officer. She then showed him the Citizen Charter where amount for trade license was mentioned to be Taka 260/=. So she gave him the exact fee instead of the officer’s extra demand of taka 560/= and finally she got her trade license without taking part in corruption.
No comments:
Post a Comment