Bangladesh News

Eminent citizens of the country yesterday presented a vision for achieving a realistically defined goal to meet people’s legitimate expectations by 2025 through a concerted effort, terming achievements in democratic practices in the last 15 years as ‘insignificant’.

Identifying confrontational political culture, poor governance, deteriorating public services, politicisation of key public and democratic institutions, culture of impunity and lack of farsightedness of the policymakers as key hurdles, they called for working together to remove those and to ensure rule of law and effective functioning of an accountable government and an independent judiciary.

“The long captive democracy got its freedom in 1991. But our success in democratic experimentation is very insignificant,” former chief adviser to a caretaker government Justice Muhammad Habibur Rahman said while addressing the presentation ceremony of the draft of the study titled ‘Bangladesh First — Bangladesh 2025′ at Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in the capital yesterday.

A group of concerned citizens undertook the study to stimulate discussions for preparation of a national roadmap which would enable Bangladesh to realise a realistically defined national goal by 2025.

Reza Kibria, a researcher also son of slain former finance minister AMS Kibria, presented the draft vision paper prepared by a cross-disciplinary group of researchers and practitioners.

Justice Habibur said not only the constitutional obligation of the government to separate the judiciary from the executive branch have been violated but also a Supreme Court order to do so has not been complied with.

Criticising the lawmakers heavily for not playing their roles in reflecting the peoples’ expectations and for walking out of the parliament on trivial issues, he said, “We expect our parliament members to be our role models not only in politics but also in our daily lives”

He said people do not expect them to walk out of the parliament on trivial matters, evade tax and keep telephone bills unpaid.

“A ‘feudal democracy’ is going on in our country. The parliament members are members of the feudal class. Each of them is a small mansabdar (a general serving the emperor in exchange of landed property) in their area,” he said.

Failing to realise its outstanding money in many cases due to negligence and corruption in the administration, the government took steps to allow whitening of money earned through illegal means but no public opinion was formed against it, he noted.

Saying that democratic institutions are fragile and remain vulnerable, Dr Kamal Hossain, a key man in the research who chaired yesterday’s event, pointed out, “Powerful special interests through money, muscle and misuse of power subordinate every institution to serve their narrow interests. Their continuing control over these institutions impels them to obstruct empowerment of the people and popular participation.”

A confrontational political culture provides little scope for the elected representatives of the opposition to participate in the parliament in a meaningful manner, which ultimately deters critically needed investment for expansion of production and employment, he said.

Noted economist Wahiduddin Mahmud said awareness of the people and individual initiatives helped private entrepreneurs of Bangladesh progress a lot working with an almost unskilled manpower despite lack of good governance.

“Although Bangladesh is situated in a very significant strategic geographic location, we can’t utilise the advantage,” he said while pointing out lack of farsightedness of the policymakers.

Former commerce minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury emphasised integration with globalisation for taking advantage of it and the need for proper human resources development.

Awami League general secretary Abdul Jalil said the roadmap would not be necessary had the vision of the Liberation War and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was implemented.

Yussuf Abdullah Harun, adviser to Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said criminalisation of many important sectors of the economy and political patronage have created uneven competition which is driving many genuine entrepreneurs out of the sectors including real estate, transportation, public procurement and retailing.

In his presentation, Reza Kibria pointed out the weaknesses, deficiencies and challenges in governance, electoral and political reforms, strengthening of local government, law and justice, economy, agriculture, social justice, education, human resources development, labour and employment, health and population, environment and water resources, energy, transport and infrastructure, national security and women issues, and placed the study recommendations.

He said the draft vision paper will be finalised following consultation with a cross-section of the people at regional level, incorporating ideas of stakeholders and inputs of non-resident Bangladeshis.