Nearly 1900 complaints on Ghush.site in three days, bribe demand exceeds Tk 20 crore

Saif Kabir and Shahed Sharif, two friends, have launched a new platform named Ghush.site (ghush.site) to publicly reveal where and how much bribe ordinary people are having to pay or being asked for while availing government services.

The website was launched on August 21. Victims can share their bitter experiences by keeping their names and identities confidential. Within just three days of its launch, a record number of complaints have been submitted. As of Monday (August 24), the number of complaints stands between nearly 1800 and 1900 while the total amount claimed as bribe is fluctuating between Tk 21 crore and Tk 25.5 crore as new complaints are being added every moment.

It is learnt that Saif Kabir and Shahed Sharif created the platform inspired by a foreign website. Their main aim is to bring the scattered experiences of bribery to one place and present an overall picture of the level of corruption in different government offices. However, it is not an alternative to any investigation agency or the Anti-Corruption Commission. Every piece of information published on the site clearly mentions the word ‘unverified’ and the entrepreneurs are also not claiming any complaint as proven truth.

The process of lodging a complaint on Ghush.site is very simple and takes little time. No account needs to be opened and the process can be completed in less than two minutes. Five main pieces of information have to be provided for a complaint—name of the office, type of service, area or region, amount of money demanded as bribe and the final outcome of what happened. Although there is scope to give a brief description of the incident, there is no provision to mention the name, designation or phone number of any specific person, officer or employee. The main objective is to highlight overall in which service sector irregularities are occurring more rather than targeting any particular individual.

No complaint submitted by users is published directly on the website immediately. First, personal and confidential information is removed through moderation while aggressive, unclear or complaints violating the website’s policy are also rejected. After review, the approved complaints are published arranged according to division, office, type of service, amount demanded and outcome of the incident.

In terms of division-wise count, the highest number of complaints, over 800, has come from Dhaka. Next are Chattogram, Rajshahi, Khulna, Rangpur, Sylhet, Mymensingh and Barishal, with several dozen to several hundred complaints from each division. A significant portion of the complainants, about 17 to 18 per cent, have informed that they refused to pay the demanded bribe.

Among the complaints submitted on the site, a notable number of allegations of bribe demand have been seen surrounding common government services such as release of money for government land acquisition, passport verification, vehicle fitness certificate and updating pension files online. In these complaints, the victims have written that even though the required papers were in order, their work was kept stalled, they were made to roam repeatedly or they faced bad behaviour if extra money was not paid.

The two entrepreneurs are operating the website entirely with their own funds without any kind of NGO or institutional grant. However, an opportunity for voluntary donation has been kept on the site for the general public.

Saif Kabir, one of the entrepreneurs, told a media outlet, “For us the criterion of success is not only the number of visitors. If a citizen before going to take a government service can understand from people’s experiences where bribe is being demanded and can reject the unjust demand, that will be our real success.”