Staff Reporter :
Former Bangladesh Bank (BB) governor Salehuddin Ahmed has said that the whole banking sector is not being run in compliance with relevant policies, laws and international standards.
“In absence of good governance, corruption and mismanagement have affected the entire banking sector,” he pointed out this while presenting a keynote paper at a roundtable at the Jatiya Press Club in city on Saturday.
The roundtable on ‘development, democracy and good governance was organized by The Dhaka Forum, a think tank.
Salehuddin, also president of The Dhaka Forum, said the economic disparity is widening in the country day by day despite development attainments. “Any development based on equity is not taking place”.
He, however, said that the financial indicators of overall economy are satisfactory, and the growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) has come out of the cycle of 6 per cent.
He regretted that country’s political activities are not there in accordance with the expectations of the people. “There is rather a serious lack of political tolerance,” he added.
Salehuddin said there is no rule of law, and a country cannot achieve economic emancipation without it.
He further said, “Development and democracy is required simultaneously. Otherwise, this development will not be sustainable.”
Speaking at the roundtable, M Hafizuddin Khan, a former adviser of the caretaker government, said it is the Election Commission’s constitutional responsibility to hold free and fair parliamentary elections.
He called for a “single-issue” movement to ensure free and fair parliamentaryt polls as there are only three months left for the elections.
Intrigue to save looters is no election:
Barrister Mainul Hosein said, country is ours and government must be elected by us freely. The intrigue to save the looters of public wealth is no election.
He said, “We have parliamentary democracy and election will be under parliamentary system after dissolving the parliament. In India also parliament is dissolved to make way for the election.”
Some ministers are talking getting killed few lakhs of people if the government is changed but they should also say how many lakhs will die if they continue in power. What we are saying is not violence of killing people but holding free election for all of us to remain alive and live together peacefully, he added.
It is shameful that our own people are looting the country and carrying out oppression on us. It is clear from today’s discussion that we have eminent economists, bankers and academics we can be proud of. But our image outside is we are incompetent, ignorant and corrupt and unable to organise good governance or free election, he further added.
Barrister Mainul said, “The hope is young ones are protesting, the general public is getting impatient. The opposition political parties are planning to form a United Front as an election alliance to secure free and fair election. Their common demand is for dissolving the parliament following the parliamentary practice. Election is a people’s affair and we must join the unity move for freeing the election from election riggers.”
Ali Imam Majumdar, former cabinet secretary said, the education system of Bangladesh worsens in its history. Leading University of Bangladesh such as Dhaka, BUET are going gradually under their standard.
Mention one former DU treasurer comments, Majunder said that the universities have been making low standard graduate by the running evening courses.
There is no meaning of development where the people are deprived, he added.
DU professor Dr. Rashed Titumir said, without inclusive political settlement the economic development will not reach at the expected level. “To achieve proper equity, distribution of wealth needs inclusive political settlement.”
He said, the economic indicator of Bangladesh is going down. The balance of payment of Bangladesh is frazil. We have stand on a broken bridge.
He also said, ours (civil society) responsibility is to raise question and government responsibility is to implementation that.
Former Professor of Jahangirnagar University and prominent political scientist Dr. Dilara Chowdhury said, “It is a big question that what the ruling party campaigning the wave of development is true or false. Even though they don’t know the definition of development.”
The presence of rule of law in Bangladesh is zero. Where the police given the political speech, there the rule of law a far cry, she added.
Dilara Chowdhury said, in absence of an accountable government and rule of law, corruption has spread severe in Bangladesh.
Economist Abu Ahmed said, the people do not believe that the election will be held or not. They do not believe the BBS statistics also which they revealed on various issues.
He said, Bangladesh has strategic value, but we could not realize that.
Engineer Enamul Haque, Dr. Rashed Titumir, Dr. Mahmudul Alam, Senior journalist Amanullah Kabir, Ambassador Serajul Islam, among others, spoke on the occasion.
