AL govt created lawless economy
The authoritarian political practices by the previous Awami League government gave rise to crony capitalism and the cronies later started to control the politics to dictate the terms of the economy, said Debapriya Bhattacharya, chief of the panel to prepare a white paper on the state of the economy.
A lawless economy was created and it was institutionalised through a nexus of bureaucrats, people with and without uniform, political leaders and a section of business people.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. These people had captured the public organisations, Bhattacharya said at a view exchange meeting yesterday with journalists of the Economic Reporters' Forum at the Planning Commission.
"At the end of the day, transparency, competence, balanced development and accountability will face obstacles if politics is not corrected," said Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue.
The government is working on reforms in various areas and is in discussions with individuals, organisations, communities and parties.
"If relief from current economic problems is not ensured, politics, which is considered as the final determining factor of a state, will also not be able to play the vital role needed for the continuation of reforms."
Banking, health, energy and information technology sectors suffered from gross anomalies during the tenure of the previous AL government. Politicisation of data also took place during the previous regime, Bhattacharya added.
Corruption took place in the implementation of the mega-projects by the immediate past government, especially in land acquisition for the projects, said Mustafizur Rahman, distinguished fellow of CPD and a member of the committee.
Some projects like the Karnaphuli tunnel do not have much utility as the proposed export processing zone at the Anwara upazila of Chattogram that it was meant to serve is yet to be established.
Similarly, the Padma Bridge railway link does not have much utility but a lot of money has already been spent to implement this project, Rahman said.
He also said it would be possible to get back the funds laundered out of Bangladesh but it is a complex process.
The last government highlighted the narratives of development to legitimise the illegal faulty election of 2014 and an alliance of crony capitalists was formed with a few businessmen, elites, groups, army and private citizens to establish the narrative of development, said Selim Raihan, another member of the committee.
There is no fixed reference period for the white paper committee and it will try to explore the data as much as it needs, said Zahid Hussain, another member of the committee.
The committee will also find out whether data was manipulated or not in different calculations, he said.
The Anti-Corruption Commission did not take any action against the wrongdoers although the auditor general office of the government raised objections in some audit reports, said AK Enamul Haque, dean of the faculty of business and economics at East West University.
"Big projects mean big anomalies," said M Tamim, another member of the panel, adding that they are trying to find out the procedures of corruption in project allocation.
In political nepotism, gifts were given in the form of universities, banks and power plants.
"The centrality of power reached such a level that the involvement of the prime minister's office was needed even in small issues," said Tamim, also a professor at Buet.
Many enterprises are running without even getting proper registrations, said Ferdaus Ara Begum, chief executive officer of Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD).
The business environment, private investment, development of small and medium enterprises and inflow of foreign direct investment did not take place at the expected level because of lack of policy support, she said.
The tax GDP ratio decreased when it was supposed to increase, said Mohammad Abu Eusuf, professor at Dhaka University's department of development studies and a member of the committee.
Data was manipulated to highlight economic development, said Towfiqul Islam Khan, a senior research fellow at the CPD.
Over the last 15 years, journalists struggled for lack of data and data authenticity as the government was reluctant to share accurate data with the public, said Shawkat Hossain Masum, head of online of Prothom Alo, a Bengali newspaper.
For instance, when inflation was going up, the government stopped publishing of inflation data, he said.
ERF President Mohammad Refayet Ullah Mirdha and ERF General Secretary Abul Kashem also spoke among others.
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