UNB, Dhaka :
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Thursday alleged that every path of livelihood of the poor and working people have been shut by enforcing the countrywide strict lockdown in an ‘unplanned way’.
“The government’s unplanned and inhumane decision of the lockdown has stalled the lives of crores of people who live from hand to mouth,” he told a virtual press conference.
The BNP leader said, “Imposing a strict lockdown without ensuring minimum food aid and cash support for the poor is by no means can be a logical decision, and it won’t be fruitful. To implement the lockdown, its pre-conditions have to be fulfilled first.”
He also presented their party’s demands for taking five effective and coordinated steps, including the formation of a national emergency advisory committee, to contain the spread of the coronavirus across the country.
The party’s other demands include providing the needy people with adequate food and at least Tk 15,000 as one-time cast support, encouraging people to stay inside, wearing masks and maintaining health safety rules, bringing 80 percent people under vaccination through a specific roadmap, taking effective steps to manufacture vaccines in Bangladesh and ensuring proper treatment of the Covid-infected patients
by increasing oxygen supplies, ICU and corona beds and necessary medical equipment.
“Although it’s too late, a national emergency advisory committee comprising health experts, all political parties, NGOs and social organisations should be formed in the country immediately,” Fakhrul said.
He said these five steps should be set as the main targets for controlling the virus. “We need to remember that the fight against Corona is a long-term war.”
The BNP leader said the government should allocate Tk 10,000 crore for helping the poor and day-labourers during the lockdown. “This is the only way to make the lockdown effective and keep the poor at home.”
Narrating the incident of ‘committing suicide’ out of hunger amid lockdown by day-labourer Din Islam in Munshiganj, Fakhrul said the cash or food aid programme should have been on the government’s priority list to help the poor and needy people to lead the normal life.
He said it seems that the Corona has come as a “blessing” for the ruling as they are indulging in misappropriation of cash and relief items allocated for the extremely poor.
The BNP leader said the finance ministry identified that the names of 1,433,000 people on the list of 50 lakh who were provided money through mobile phones are fake.
Referring to a newspaper report, he said at least two millionaires have been given relief materials in Jhenaidah.
“You know all the stories of mega corruption in mega projects…the government can now allocate money from those projects to save lives. But they’re not doing that.”
BNP standing committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury and Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuk, among others, spoke at the press conference.
