What is the overall health of ‘Bangladesh’, how is it doing politically and economically ?

Question asked by SALT: What is the overall health of ‘Bangladesh’, how is it doing politically and economically ?

Best answer:

Answer by ~slsmhu
Overall health of Bangladesh is better than what it was during the last 5-years of BNP rule (2001-2006). The main reason is that some of the essential items registered downward revision of their retail-prices. However, fall in rice prices is causing very uneasiness among the farmers and Bangladesh may have to export limited quantity of rice and government must buy some 2 million tons of rice to make sure that the farmers are not reverting back to cash-crop in the next year causing vicious cycle of abnormal rise in the price of rice.

People are outraged by the failure of successive regimes to easy the electricity load-shedding problem. It is now a parrot’s talk by every government to say that they do not have Aladdin’s Lamp that the power generation can be seeded up. What an irony of fate for the nation that while ruling party would blame on their predecessors, they would pass their own tenure of 5-years and the sufferings would remain the same for the population.

The stark difference in this time that we can see is that Sk. Hasina Awami League president and the current Prime Minister has chosen the path of confrontation and she is beating her opponents without any mercy. Who is here to let her know that the country can not be ruled by the government alone and they would definitely need the cooperation of the Opposition Parties? Read: “Notice on Khaleda to vacate the cantonment house’ and also ‘Apart from launching a legal battle and protest programmes, the BNP may even boycott the next budget of the parliament’.

The civil administration saw widespread changes including making many officers OSDs in the first 100 days of AL-led grand alliance government, hampering smooth functioning of the bureaucracy and governance as a whole. Activities of the Bangladesh Secretariat have almost come to a halt due to lack of assertiveness and commanding skills of most of the ministers who were taken in the cabinet on the basis of their loyalty to the party-chief than their individual caliber or past performances. So many novice faces are around that it looks like you have Scouts running the Military disciplines.

Provision of the newly-enacted Upazila Parishad (UZ=Sub-district) Act, 2009 that empower lawmakers (MPs) to meddle with the functioning of the UZ Parishads that also go against a Supreme court verdict delivered on 27-04-2006, that reads like “The members of parliament are entitled to ask for information and raise grievance against any of their electorates before the House but cannot interfere with the local administration (UZ)”.

The reputation of AL led govt besmirched mostly by the ruling party’s student wing-Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) which is now synonymous to trouble and embarrassment for the AL shadowed by more than 50violent clashes in educational institutions all over Bangladesh. Intra-BCL clashes were also making the lives of the general students miserable.

In the economic front: The government announced a Tk. 34.24 Billion (US$ 500 Million) package to cushion the blow of global economy. The fund meant to be used within April-June includes Tk. 450 Crore (US$ 66 Million) in cash subsidies for the export industries already hit by the recession.

The fixed salary persons are getting too tired to run their family and ‘salary of govt staff likely to double’ as per the report. The 7th pay Commission recommended raising maximum salary to Tk. 45,000 from existing tk 23,000 and the lowest basic salary to Tk. 4,300 from exiting Tk. 2,300 (1 US Dollar = about Taka 70).

Overall performance of the AL in the last 100 days are below average and the trend seems to be going downhill since there is no end to the jingoism being shown by the ruling party (AL) as well as its student wing (BCL). The world economy is also not favouring this government much, but it is going to be multiplied if the Ministers are still to pass their learning-curves. There is no substitute for efficient and knowledgeable Ministers to the party-loyal novices!

Sorry for the long response, but we are living under heavy clouds of uncertainties.

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