One year of the Mahajote government
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Enayet Rasul Bhuiyan
Although the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has passed its judgment on the incumbent government as one that has been a failure in all respects during the last one year, this conclusion appears to be a gross overstatement from examination of the real performance of the government during this period. For the government's bag of achievements cannot be so easily dismissed off as nothing significant.
Undoubtedly, there have been noted lapses and failure to deliver on the part of this government in line with the election time promises. Nonetheless, its attainments in some areas should not be ignored either in all fairness. In fact, the government presided over a period of mixed results -- some good, some bad -- which means that any evaluation of its activities needs to be tempered with realism.
The first thing to note is that major charges of corruption could not be credibly brought, yet, against the ministers in the cabinet. As a former prominent bureaucrat and highly respected adviser to the last caretaker government observed, the relatively unblemished records of the ministers could have a relationship to the fact that major tender biddings in different sectors have not yet started. This implies that the ministers still have relatively cleaner backgrounds as the opportunities for them to indulge in big corruption have not arrived. But this line of thinking is not so convincing as the cleaner look of ministers may also have a connection to traumatic experiences suffered by politicians for two years from 2007 on charges of corruption. It could well be that the remembrances of these sufferings are still fresh in the minds of those in power and they are not taking any chances. It is likely that the Prime Minister herself has exhorted her cabinet colleagues to stay away from corruption and be ready to suffer penalties for non compliance with the directive.
It is also noteworthy that the activities of the ruling party members to grab all business opportunities for themselves through manipulation of work orders and tenders at the lower levels, the serious physical clashes between different interest groups of the ruling party to this end, such incidents have declined notably in number. The stern directives from the party's high command in this area appear to be taking hold. The law and order condition --after a free fall for some months immediately following the takeover by this government -- on the whole appeared to be much improved as 2009 came to a close.
Government appeared to score decisive successes during the last year in drawing remittance earnings leading to swelling of the foreign currency reserve, expanding the collection of revenues under different heads, achieving a higher rate of implementation of the Annual Development Plan(ADP), increasing supports towards agriculture or agricultural productivity and in the greater and more efficient distribution of agriculture related credits.
Some impressive developments were seen in the health sector from close governmental supervision. Improvements were noted in the running of the public sector hospitals. Major steps were taken to specially save the rivers from unabated pollution and for their regeneration. The foreign ministry also took a number of very important steps to safeguard Bangladesh's too vital interests in relation to neighbouring countries. A new education policy was unfurled along with moves to implement it. Even after a major debacle, government could successfully distribute million of textbooks to children on time at the start of the new academic year when every time in recent years the opposite of this was seen. Bangladesh Bank and related institutions played their role expertly in the sphere of monetary policies that had a salutary effect in keeping inflation under a leash. Although upward movement of prices waned at the outset when this government took over, the higher price trends resumed from the middle part of last year and still remains unchanged. However, the comforts are that the prices of some essential commodities are still not as high as these used to be during the terminal months of the immediate past caretaker government. In the political sphere, government under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was remarkably successful in quelling a rebellion of the country's border security forces and in stopping on its tracks the drift towards widespread violence and anarchy centering on this mutiny.
But the burden of failures of this government is not small either. Very conspicuously, it has done poorly in a very vital area where circumstances dictated it to work on a war footing. All of the government's ambitious plan of drawing foreign investments and in enthusing the local investors depend on augmenting energy supplies at the soonest. The greatest predicament for the Bangladesh economy stems from insufficient energy supply or dwindling supply of power and gas falling far short of demand. Therefore, the greatest expectation from the elected government was its going to work in a very focused manner from day one in its tenure to increase energy supplies considerably at the fastest and to assure through its activities that substantial additions of power and gas to their respective national grids would be achieved in the mid term. But addition of energies to the national grids have been meager compared to the need or expectation. Despite the government pledging afresh that at least 1,300 mw of power would be added to the national grid by march or April next, no one with actual knowledge of works done in this area is keeping faith in such promises.
The government's ability to steal the initiative from the opposition and to keep the opposition in a peaceful bent of mind, is also in doubt. As it is, the opposition is threatening a spell of agitation and violence over various issues which the government could probably pre-empt by taking reconciliatory measures. The people have been witnesses to the government helping the process of large scale withdrawl of cases lodged against the current ruling party members under the caretaker government for corruption. But members of the opposition party have been denied similar facility. Thus, the government is inviting charges of helping its own party members by treating them too leniently through freeing them from corruption cases while oppressing the opposition party members by not extending to them the same opportunity. Government is also getting accused for politicising the administration through mass promotions of its loyalists in the civil services. But the present ruling party used to show its great bitterness towards the immediate past elected government on this same score when the latter was in power. In sum, government's activities in the political sphere are only encouraging political volatility and the growing of political instability when the country has no use for the same for the smooth running of its economy or to achieve the targeted rate of economic growth.
Although the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has passed its judgment on the incumbent government as one that has been a failure in all respects during the last one year, this conclusion appears to be a gross overstatement from examination of the real performance of the government during this period. For the government's bag of achievements cannot be so easily dismissed off as nothing significant.
Undoubtedly, there have been noted lapses and failure to deliver on the part of this government in line with the election time promises. Nonetheless, its attainments in some areas should not be ignored either in all fairness. In fact, the government presided over a period of mixed results -- some good, some bad -- which means that any evaluation of its activities needs to be tempered with realism.
The first thing to note is that major charges of corruption could not be credibly brought, yet, against the ministers in the cabinet. As a former prominent bureaucrat and highly respected adviser to the last caretaker government observed, the relatively unblemished records of the ministers could have a relationship to the fact that major tender biddings in different sectors have not yet started. This implies that the ministers still have relatively cleaner backgrounds as the opportunities for them to indulge in big corruption have not arrived. But this line of thinking is not so convincing as the cleaner look of ministers may also have a connection to traumatic experiences suffered by politicians for two years from 2007 on charges of corruption. It could well be that the remembrances of these sufferings are still fresh in the minds of those in power and they are not taking any chances. It is likely that the Prime Minister herself has exhorted her cabinet colleagues to stay away from corruption and be ready to suffer penalties for non compliance with the directive.
It is also noteworthy that the activities of the ruling party members to grab all business opportunities for themselves through manipulation of work orders and tenders at the lower levels, the serious physical clashes between different interest groups of the ruling party to this end, such incidents have declined notably in number. The stern directives from the party's high command in this area appear to be taking hold. The law and order condition --after a free fall for some months immediately following the takeover by this government -- on the whole appeared to be much improved as 2009 came to a close.
Government appeared to score decisive successes during the last year in drawing remittance earnings leading to swelling of the foreign currency reserve, expanding the collection of revenues under different heads, achieving a higher rate of implementation of the Annual Development Plan(ADP), increasing supports towards agriculture or agricultural productivity and in the greater and more efficient distribution of agriculture related credits.
Some impressive developments were seen in the health sector from close governmental supervision. Improvements were noted in the running of the public sector hospitals. Major steps were taken to specially save the rivers from unabated pollution and for their regeneration. The foreign ministry also took a number of very important steps to safeguard Bangladesh's too vital interests in relation to neighbouring countries. A new education policy was unfurled along with moves to implement it. Even after a major debacle, government could successfully distribute million of textbooks to children on time at the start of the new academic year when every time in recent years the opposite of this was seen. Bangladesh Bank and related institutions played their role expertly in the sphere of monetary policies that had a salutary effect in keeping inflation under a leash. Although upward movement of prices waned at the outset when this government took over, the higher price trends resumed from the middle part of last year and still remains unchanged. However, the comforts are that the prices of some essential commodities are still not as high as these used to be during the terminal months of the immediate past caretaker government. In the political sphere, government under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was remarkably successful in quelling a rebellion of the country's border security forces and in stopping on its tracks the drift towards widespread violence and anarchy centering on this mutiny.
But the burden of failures of this government is not small either. Very conspicuously, it has done poorly in a very vital area where circumstances dictated it to work on a war footing. All of the government's ambitious plan of drawing foreign investments and in enthusing the local investors depend on augmenting energy supplies at the soonest. The greatest predicament for the Bangladesh economy stems from insufficient energy supply or dwindling supply of power and gas falling far short of demand. Therefore, the greatest expectation from the elected government was its going to work in a very focused manner from day one in its tenure to increase energy supplies considerably at the fastest and to assure through its activities that substantial additions of power and gas to their respective national grids would be achieved in the mid term. But addition of energies to the national grids have been meager compared to the need or expectation. Despite the government pledging afresh that at least 1,300 mw of power would be added to the national grid by march or April next, no one with actual knowledge of works done in this area is keeping faith in such promises.
The government's ability to steal the initiative from the opposition and to keep the opposition in a peaceful bent of mind, is also in doubt. As it is, the opposition is threatening a spell of agitation and violence over various issues which the government could probably pre-empt by taking reconciliatory measures. The people have been witnesses to the government helping the process of large scale withdrawl of cases lodged against the current ruling party members under the caretaker government for corruption. But members of the opposition party have been denied similar facility. Thus, the government is inviting charges of helping its own party members by treating them too leniently through freeing them from corruption cases while oppressing the opposition party members by not extending to them the same opportunity. Government is also getting accused for politicising the administration through mass promotions of its loyalists in the civil services. But the present ruling party used to show its great bitterness towards the immediate past elected government on this same score when the latter was in power. In sum, government's activities in the political sphere are only encouraging political volatility and the growing of political instability when the country has no use for the same for the smooth running of its economy or to achieve the targeted rate of economic growth.