Bangladesh News

The election manifesto of BNP that Khaleda Zia presented on Saturday has a waft of promises for a wide spectrum of sectors. But it lacks accountable and specific targets, and leaves the question of resource mobilisation unsolved.

It too has set curbing of inflation as a prime task, but the ways to tame it are weakly mentioned.

It rightly focuses on development of small and medium enterprises (SME) and proposes a raft of measures, some vague and some specific. The strategy it wants to follow is enhancement of food production by subsidising agricultural inputs and stocking up food.

But the proposition that makes one wonder about its pragmatism and practicality is that the party wants to distribute food free of cost among the destitute, helpless, elderly and the unemployed. This certainly looks like an impossible proposition. There are at least 25 percent of the population falling below the poverty line, another 9 percent above the age of 55, and another 4.2 percent unemployed. So in total, at least 5 to 6 crore people will need to be fed free of cost, the needed resource for which will be enormous and certainly beyond any government’s capability. Is this an empty promise then, or a political rhetoric? The proposal for extending the programme of ensured jobs for 100 days is however well received, and promises good results in monga prone areas.

The manifesto’s proposals for industrialisation are again vague, but there are some specific promises too. Establishment of an export park is certainly a good idea and promises of soft loan for SMEs is just what the sector needs. But the hiccup comes again when one finds promises of collateral free loans for university graduates against their certificates. If one may remind, a similar project was launched by military dictator General HM Ershad when he was in power, which later turned out to be a big hoax as his party flunkeys gobbled up the fund from Sonali Bank.

The BNP feels the need for helping the garment sector and for perking up the stock market, but again the manifesto stops short of specific action plans, while making some blanket promises to net in foreign direct investment.

It is heartening however to see the manifesto proposing formation of an advisory committee to tackle the impacts of global economic crisis, but specific action plans are missing again.

On the agricultural front, many promises have been made, again without spelling out the means for realising those. How new agricultural inventions will be disseminated among farmers, how agricultural production will be raised or how seeds and fertilizers will be supplied are all questions hanging in the air. But good to know that there is a plan to set up warehouses and cold storages for preserving produce. But is that not a job of the private sector? Are we again talking about the state getting engaged in business?

Inexplicable are the proposals in the manifesto for encouraging farmers to grow region specific crops and to go for multi-cropping, and also for providing higher technology to poultry, fisheries and the cattle rearing sector. Our farmers are already practicing localisation of crops — potato is cultivated in Munishganj and not in Barisal, wheat in Rajshahi not in Chittagong. Then what is the catch here that the manifesto is talking about? Are our poultry and fisheries not two of the most productive?

The BNP exhibits modern thinking when it proposes setting up a high-tech city for development of information technology. India, the US and many other countries developed this way and there is no reason why Bangladesh cannot. However, it leaves much to be desired in telecommunications and the spread of internet, while the document only mentions briefly that those will be improved. Improvement is an ongoing process and does not need mentioning.

Oxymoron is the proposal for sending nurses to the Middle East and Britain while Bangladesh itself is facing an acute shortage of medical assistants. A few big hospitals recently went to Kerala to recruit nurses and came back empty handed.

The manifesto talks a lot about infrastructure which is good for perking up the economy. But again many of those such as the Dhaka-Chittagong highway, and flyover and monorail projects are all legacies of the past BNP-led government, which were not achieved during the party’s five years in power. We can only hope that the party has now become more sincere about keeping its promises.

The manifesto touches upon the quintessential power and energy sector, but again without being specific. Instead of apologising to the public for BNP’s failure in the energy sector, the manifesto claims that due to massive development in the industrial and agricultural sectors during 2001-2006, the energy demand exceeded the supply capacity. Such a claim mocks the 2006 Kansat tragedy where several people were killed in police firings while they were demonstrating demanding power supply.

Overall, the manifesto does not provide the nation with any road map for resolving the ongoing energy crisis in the country. It makes general commitments about small power plants, renewables, and atomic energy, and talks about a transparent and effective power generation and distribution policy.

It proposes nothing original regarding new power projects, but promises to implement power projects ‘approved by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Japan’ passing the entire onus on external organisations.

The manifesto specifies only two power projects Bibiyana 450 megawatt (mw) and Sirajganj 450 mw contracts for which the party wants to award to successful bidders through re-tendering within 100 days of its ascension to power.

Firstly, the present caretaker government has already completed preparations for both of those power projects, and the World Bank and other financiers are ready to finance them. It would not take much special initiative to complete the bidding process upon coming to power. Secondly, such a commitment stands as a stark contrast to the fact that in 2004 the BNP-led alliance government cancelled a bid for Sirajganj 450 mw power project at its matured stage.

The BNP also promises formation of a specialised committee within 100 days of its ascension to power, to frame a policy for optimal energy utilisation. The government formed by BNP would implement its recommendations regarding oil, gas and coal. But the promise raises questions about the party’s move in 2002 to set up two expert committees — one for gas utilisation and the other for gas resources assessment. The BNP-led past government did not follow any recommendation of the gas utilisation committee except that it did not export gas as per the US company Unocal’s proposal. The gas utilisation committee had warned that the country will face a gas crisis from 2011 and that the government should initiate oil and gas exploration to find more gas reserves.

The party promises to make Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) ‘more’ effective. BERC was created in 2003. Till the dissolution of the immediate past BNP-led government in October 2006, BERC had no power. The present caretaker government however vested some critical issues like energy pricing on BERC making BNP’s commitment of making it ‘more effective’ sound rather hollow.