"Bangladesh would slide down the rank of Transparency International's most corrupt countries once the commission starts work, the public procurement regulations are complied with in government purchase and if the media runs objective and investigative reports," Finance and Planning Minister M Saifur Rahman told reporters after his meeting with visiting Vice-President of the Asian Development Bank Liqun Jin.

Saifur quoted Jin as expressing the hope that the perception about Bangladesh held outside would change positively if the antigraft watchdog body starts functioning.

Jin earlier met representatives of donor agencies in Dhaka and discussed Bangladesh's being the most corrupt nation according to the Corruption Perceptions Index of the Berlin-based anticorruption watchdog and other issues.

Saifur said the ADB executive agreed with him that the mechanism that TI and the World Bank use to gauge the level of corruption is not right. "Where doesn't corruption take place? If we have Fokker-sized corruption here, they (donor countries) have jumbo-sized ones over there."

"Since we happen to be the aid recipient, our case gets blown up," he lamented.

The finance minister said the government has put into effect the Public Procurement Regulations to bring transparency and accountability in government purchase. A few ministries initially did dilly-dally about going by the regulations, but things would be straightened out through imparting training to the officials, he added.

About the foot-dragging on formation of the commission, the finance minister said, "We were having problems picking the right people for the commission whose neutrality had to be beyond any doubt since ours is a society that is deeply divided into Awami League and BNP camps.

"However, we are almost done with the selection process and the commission will shortly get down to business."