Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya Roots and extent of corruption and policy failings in entire economic spectrum, including wrongs in finance and development megaprojects, will be unveiled in the 'white paper' on the anvil to show way forward.
However, the wrongdoers won't be unmasked in person, the authors of the white paper said on Thursday while introducing a vast to-do plan framed in the light of the current interim government's state-and-economy reconstruction recipe.
The newly formed White Paper Preparation Committee chief, Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, said they would delve into reasons of corruption and the extent of it during the deposed Sheikh Hasina regime.
However, they will not go for indentifying the persons behind the graft as those works would be done by government's relevant authority, he said while briefing journalists after the committee's first meeting on Thursday in Dhaka.
"Why the corruption occurred and what is the extent of it will be told to the government. But who have perpetrated the corruption will not be reflected in the white paper," said the economist in setting forth the modus operandi of the cutting-edge function.
"We will analyse the misdeeds and give our expert comments on those."
The interim government formed the12-member committee, headed by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) distinguished fellow, Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, for the preparation of a 'white paper on the sate of economy'.
During the inaugural meeting, the committee members discussed several key topics, like the context and purpose of the initiative, the scope and methodology of work, the tentative structure of the final report, outreach and communications strategies, division of tasks among team members and other related matters.
"We will also review the policies taken by the last government. We will look into what policy should be continued. We'll also recommend some ways forward that will check bad policies in the future," said Dr Debapriya, who had always been critical of what had gone wrong in policy matters over the years.
The expert panel will hint some future policy issues for preparing the upcoming 9th five-year plan, implementing sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the challenges and opportunities for Bangladesh's LDC graduation.
"We are not going with the reform activities of the government but we will give some ideas which will help in conducting the necessary reforms," the committee chief said.
"We have lot of aspirations. But as we will get only three months, we cannot do many things. We will try to reflect aspiration with the goals of the country," he added.
In the middle of their 90-day assignment, they will unveil a draft report of the white paper partially or sectoral one aimed at getting some inputs from different quarters in the country.
When asked, the CPD's distinguished fellow said they would not go for ADP portfolio analysis and each of the projects but will give some in-general recommendations for development of the country.
On the other hand, they will review the megaprojects and if they find any project problematic, they will "review it seriously".
This white paper will not go for reviewing past government's activities rather will mostly help the present interim government to go with their reforms, he said, adding that they will give some way-forward directions that will facilitate checking previous mistakes over again.
"We will not go into details on financial sector. But when we will analyst the private investment, then there will definitely some issues automatically come in the financial sector."
Amid the current economic scenario, how much challenging the megaprojects are and what was the extent of their impact will be analysed. "For example, you have borrowed the money, but whether you have capacity to repay the loans or whether you have the implementation capacity will be scrutinised."
The poor tax-GDP ratio will be one of the discussion points for this committee too.
"If the state policy and rules are changed for conducting the misdeeds and corruption, we will try to determine those. The role of organisations also will be detailed out. And we will also recommend some way-forward that will prevent those types of misdeeds in the future," the economist went on elaborating on the white-paper authors' job.
They will recommend safeguards for the public deposits with banks, security of their investments.
"We will also recommend the government about the licensing system of the commercial banks so that incapable persons are not given the permission for setting up banks in the future," he said.
"We will tell something on capital flight. Bringing back of the laundered money outside the countries is a complex process. Tracking the money is not an easy matter."
He further clarified that the committee will not conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the banking sector and financial institutions. "The government is planning to form Banking Commission, which will be established in the future to address those issues," Debapriya noted.
The committee will sit for the next meeting next Tuesday.
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