THOUGH the economic impact of the ongoing blockade has not been measured yet, but the disruption of the total supply chain is already conspicuous to the experts. Experts fear, the rolling political impasse is taking a huge toll on the economy, but that has not caused much concern among the political high ups who are busy holding on to the power at any cost. They ignore the mass sufferings and thus outcries of the business leaders do not get much consideration.
President of the Federation of Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) on Saturday urged the government to seek legal actions against those who call blockades. Undeniably, blockade, hartals or such other kinds of brutal political activities are major barriers to the economy, but to say the truth, these harmful, intolerable agitation programs i.e. torching vehicles and derailing trains by removing tracks and so on, all originated just from a single cause that occurred on January 5 last year. When the people’s democratic franchises like voting, rights of expression, rights of association or assembly are denied creating an atmosphere of anarchy through autocracy, then some kind of extremism or frenetic movement is not unusual.
Due to the ongoing open-ended blockade, the country’s transport sector alone has been losing heavily with at least 200,000 buses and lorries kept off the road for fear of attacks. It also hampered supply of goods. Farmers are the worst sufferers. Their vegetables are rotting on the fields. At least 162 buses, lorries and cars have been torched while hundreds more have been damaged. Train schedules have also gone haywire. The prolonged blockade could prompt Western retailers to divert orders to other nations from the Bangladesh RMG producers, who account for 80 percent of the country’s $27.3 billion annual exports.
Meanwhile, a Singapore-based US rating agency Fitch Ratings has narrated that the renewed political tensions and violence may negatively affect foreign investor confidence, raising risks to growth over the long term. If violence were to persist and directly disrupt economic activity, especially by inflicting long-term harm to the RMG sector, this would be credit negative, Fitch predicted. These are facts. But all owe their origin to the Jan 05 elections.
For the sake of the country’s economy, we must be sincere and true to our words and activities leaving any heinous partisan attitude or not being the tools of a particular party. Economy now mainly suffers from a non-conducive environment based on lax democracy due to the unparticipatory January 5 elections.
