Duties and responsibilities of the members of the purchase committee

Some former members of the Khaleda-Nizami cabinet who, being members of the then Cabinet Purchase Committee, have recently been arrested for their alleged involvement in the infamous ‘Gatco Corruption Case’. Other members of the same committee are on the run to avoid arrest. Some such arrested former ministers, some ‘Talkers’ in the local TV channels and some journalists, through their writings and speeches, are trying to give an impression to the nation that the said Cabinet Purchase Committee was nothing but a mere rubber stamp without any significance. As an ordinary citizen I do not know what is written in the ‘Rules of Business’ on the duties and responsibilities of the members of the purchase committee. But I can assume that a committee on which sits a number of senior cabinet ministers, and on whose recommendation the prime minister gives his/her decision cannot be a committee on paper only. If the members of the committee conducted themselves as the domestic servants of the prime minister and, knowing the prime minister’s mind recommended something which the prime minister wanted to do with some ulterior motive, the concerned committee members cannot escape the responsibility for the wrong doing by the prime minister. If found guilty, they must be punished to put such ministers on guard in future.