Bangladesh Muktijoddha Kalyan Trust laid off all the 20 industries it owned as corruption, inefficiency and the government’s faulty policy made them sick. In August, Mimi Chocolate was shut down in the capital and in October, Eastern Chemical Industries met the same fate in Chattogram. And 18 other industries were closed down from 1983 to 2009.
Due to corruption and inefficiency Eastern Chemical Industries used to incur annual losses worthy Tk 1.56 crore. Due to the same malaise Mimi Chocolate incurred losses worth Tk 72 lakh each year. It became impossible for the Kalyan Trust to run its industries in the competitive market.
Bangladesh Muktijoddha Kalyan Trust opened markets on the spaces vacated by factories but corrupt officials leased the shops out at throw away prices and filled their own pockets.
Economists, senior citizens and the Transparency International Bangladesh blamed successive governments for paying no attention to control corruption, not up-grading the factories and taking no effective strategy to make the Trust financially viable to enable it to support freedom fighters.
The Trust was mandated to bear the costs of wheel chairs, artificial limbs, medicines, educational expenses, daughters’ marriages and the burials of war injured freedom fighters and families of the martyrs. The Trust not only failed in its mandated tasks but had to borrow Tk 9.25 crore from the government to pay utility bills as well as salaries and benefits of 104 regular staff and 136 laid off staff of Tabani Beverage.
The solution to stopping corruption should not be to close down the industries the Trust owns — its akin to chopping off one’s head if one gets a migraine. It should not have been too difficult for the administration to figure out which officials were corrupt and penalise them or remove them and let freshers take over.
The logical policy for reforming any institution is to figure out the problems and then fix them. If fixing the problems becomes unattainable only then one resorts to sell them. By selling the industries the revenue generation of the Trust has come down to zero level — a fact which is hardly bearable.
Why weren’t the corrupt officials fined and their assets scrutinised so that the excess funds could be appropriated by the authorities to set up a new fund for the Trust? The rampaging corruption has gone on without any steps taken by the authorities to bring the guilty to justice. Similarly, no reforms have been carried out to ensure the financial viability of the Trust. Its almost as if the Trust is seen as a step child which one must get rid off at any cost.
