Did interim government do any good?

I was vacationing in China during the last week of October 2006. All of a sudden, I was contacted and asked to see our Asia Pacific CEO and the Chief Risk Officer at Hong Kong to discuss the latest developments in Bangladesh. I didn't have any clue, since I did not keep track of the developments in Bangladesh at that period. While browsing in the websites of the Bangladesh newspapers, I came to know of the October 28 incident. I was told by my seniors they were quite panicked to see in BBC news reports, people being beaten to death in broad daylight in Dhaka city. Believe it or not, nobody was liking the way things were developing in Bangladesh during the second half of 2006. Development partners, business leaders, civil and military bureaucracy, all were becoming jittery about the country situation. I had met with the then Army chief twice during November and December period- once to invite him to be the chief guest at the golf tournament organized by my institution and another time, to sell the idea of establishing power plants under joint venture between Sena Kalyan Shangstha (Army welfare trust) and a leading international power generator company. The gentleman seemed to be quite perturbed with the latest political unrest seriously impacting the possible economic future of the country vis a vis against its peers like Vietnam. I went to perform holy Hajj during the last week of December and didn't have much clue what was cooking behind the screen in Bangladesh. On the 11th of January, 2007 I was again out of the country, attending a South Asia conference of my organization. Again I was asked by my attending seniors from the USA and Hong Kong, what would be the outcome of this military intervention in Bangladesh politics? Obviously, my seniors were not convinced and they were never likely to be convinced with a democratic government being replaced by a military rule. I was almost failing to convince them that it is not the typical military government, since political transition in Bangladesh is always very troublesome, the entire nation has chosen this model of `interim government'. Added to this was of course the military backing especially to attack intolerable corruption. My South Asia boss came forward to rescue me saying that in view of massive political unrest, killings, corruption this was possibly the only alternative and more loudly, he thought the interim government chief being a 'very good administrator' would be able to take the country back to democracy with garbage removed. During the rule of the immediate part caretaker government, a number of fundamental reforms were carried out and more are now being effected for the structural enhancement of the state and people's lives. Many might ask whether the caretaker government was supposed to stay in power for so long and open up so many avenues for reforms. Well, answer is simple - when you take over the country's administration, especially with a large laundry list, you should perform your duties properly demonstrating certain level of integrity; and, to do that you may actually have to fix a lot of things which would take time. Just think about the situation prior to 111, it was a complete chaos coupled with corruption amidst preparation for poll fixing and opposition protesting it on the street for obvious reasons, people got killed and public and private properties damaged. A caretaker government should not only take on power to hold elections, they must hold it in a "free and fair" manner and to ensure such freeness and fairness one has to change things if need be. It happened in many countries years before, we are only late in getting a government like this one who would dare bring about many fundamental changes. People without ill-gotten money, people who do not have lusts for power and money one faithful people who seek only divine blessings to help them - were and are surely supportive of that kind of government. When the government took over power, they faced a lot of challenges - a failing foreign policy, increasing oil price, huge amount of domestic borrowings, aimless reforms, messy energy and infrastructural initiatives, inaccurate voter list, massive corruption and so on. We did see three successive democratic governments, but whoever came to power misused it or showed `winner takes it all' attitude and people around them got benefits of licences, concessions and got richer at the cost of country's foreign exchange, fiscal deficit, poor implementation of development plan, lack of preparedness to face the challenges caused by externalities, inadequate investment in education etc. It only demonstrated that just holding an election would not bring much benefit to the country, one must do massive reforms. All the price hikes, safety and security issues, stress in foreign relationship, three successive natural calamities all had to be handled by the caretaker government. This was also the time, when civil society members were deserting their `own government' for their vested interest and political parties not willing to cooperate with the government in bringing about most required changes within the parties. It seemed the caretaker government was managing a tougher situation than it had originally expected. Despite all challenges, they did achieve certain good things. The management of post-cyclone and Sidr rehabilitation work was impressive. Even with damage cause to crop by Sidr and two consecutive floods that preceded Sidr, nation managed to get bumper boro 'crop' due to a shift in the terms of trade in favor of the growers. Open market sale of foodgrains to the poor was a successful move that defied concern of a "silent famine". We continued to see increasing export, which was under pressure, and growth in inward remittances. Prudent central bank operation improved the foreign exchange reserve situation covering about 3.79 months of import. Remittances from Bangladeshis working overseas rose by almost 31 per cent year-on-year. The strong inflows of workers' remittances resulted in some amount of current-account surplus in July-December 2007 with expected small surpluses in 2008 and in 2009. Investors from the United States, France, Turkey, Malaysia, China, Middle-East and other Southeast Asian countries continued to show keen interest in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Bank did a splendid job in terms of keeping Taka stable against US$. Additionally, the caretaker government continued the process of corporatising the four nationalised banks and was able to corporatise three NCBs, Biman, and BTTB. The progress of corporatisation of other SOEs was encouraging. The sale of a majority stake in troubled Oriental Bank, to a Swiss-based financial company, ICB Financial Group Holdings AG in February, was also a major success of the government. Government's handling of the floods and Sidr and the food crisis may not have been duly recognized, but I do hope that when a cross country analysis of the food crisis handling will be made by analysts and researchers in future, the facts will come out. We have also seen that the adverse movement of the external terms of trade against Bangladesh translated into a diversion of domestic terms of trade in favour of agriculture and rural areas. We saw the government's move ensured a higher income for farmers, agricultural labourers and rural business, including transport. An increase in rice price of Tk. 10 per kg. meant an additional income of Tk. 170 billion distributed among a large number of people. If it went on for few years as seemed likely, it was expected to ultimately result in a faster decline in poverty in rural areas. As for the preparation of election, the government, especially the agency responsible, has shown spectacular performance. Voter ID cards were delivered. This was a mammoth project the government courageously took on, a significant milestone towards the institutionalization of democracy and people's rights. On the structural reform side, Better Business Forum and Regulatory Reform Commission were the need of time. Separation of judiciary was a major step towards demonstrating the caretaker government's commitment for institutions building and eliminating any conflicting roles within the government machineries. Strengthening of the Anti-corruption commission also got to bring in the desired result of building accountable and responsible leadership in the days to come. However, there were certain areas which perhaps posed a challenge to the government. The caretaker government comprising mainly civil society members was perceived to be a bit "alien to ground realities". It would have been useful if they could generate greater support from civil bureaucracy and minimize the tension between civil and military bureaucracy. As a prudent group of technocrats, they could easily avoid creating tension in Dhaka University and be able to utilise the services of senior lawyers more. They could have focused more on building a meritocracy-based academic system which is currently corrupted and politicized. More investment should have been made for improving the bench-strength of civil bureaucracy and foreign ministry professionals. Most importantly, many of their "foot-soldiers" were allegedly indulging in mimicking the behavior of the rank and cadre of political parties which severely damaged the "clean" image of the caretaker government. This writer made a farewell call on the then chief adviser during second week of December 2008. The soft speaking yet extremely focused individual was happy to note the successful holding of the election within the stipulated time. He was quite happy about the way they could manage the natural calamities and global meltdown impact with the help of the civil administration. Understandably he also thought they could have done a better job with regard to encouraging meritocracy in civil bureaucracy, getting anti corruption commission little better prepared to handle more selectively related cases and establishing accountability within the political system. Whether they opened up too many Pandora's boxes or focused on too many irrelevant issues, history would tell. I am not adequately equipped to evaluate that. It is no doubt, they have been able to send a message to the rank and file and were able to shake a few. They possibly represented better the aspiration of a lot, if not majority of peace loving, patriotic Bangladeshis, who possibly deserved to see better fruits of our war of liberation and more convincingly won't have any hesitation to make further sacrifices for a better Bangladesh, if need be. Has Bangladesh moved forward subsequently? Have we built on the progress made during the caretaker government period or have we relapsed to political bickering and a backward looking blame game? That is a subject for another day. ........................................................................................ The writer is a banker and economic analyst and he can be reached at: mamun1960@gmail.com