How fares our government? Mahmud ur Rahman Choudhury Last week I wrote two editorials on successive dates titled "How fares our parliament?" and "How is our government faring?", basically discussing what our parliament and government has done so far in fulfilling their commitments made to the people before the December 2008 elections. The second of the two I found to be important enough to go to the front pages with and so, here it is. The AL government is in office for the last 4 months and within that time the government had run into many crises which it is still in the process of "handling" but those processes are taking their time, raising frustrations within the "populace". Having promised the "world" so to say, before the elections, the AL government is now finding it difficult to deliver, pushing more and more decisions and solution further and further away along the time-scale. So, let's take some of the more important issues and see what the AL is doing about those. The energy and power crisis had been building up in Bangladesh over the last 7 years and the AL is well aware of the problems the crisis has been creating for everything - industries, agriculture, communications, businesses and general living - and yet it had promised, before the elections to resolve it "quickly". Now that the AL is in government for the last few months, it is finding out that solving the energy and power crisis call for much more than words and after blaming the last BNP-Jamaat government for aggravating the problem, the government is claiming that "maybe" the crisis would be resolved after 3 years! Meanwhile the AL is asking the people to have "patience and understanding" - two states of the mind which people have run out off a long time back. The AL is also threatening tough police actions against anybody who takes to the streets protesting against the intolerable situation. So much for the energy and power crisis. Like the energy and power crisis, food and price crisis has been prevailing in the country since the last few years and the AL promised to tackle it fast. It did so initially, showing a lot of "presence" of its ministers in Dhaka markets and threats of dire action against price hikes. Prices came down to some extent, not because of AL actions but because commodity prices were on the down-slide in international markets but within just 2 months prices crept up despite the threats of "dire actions". The over-production of cereal crops, over the last one year, by enthusiastic farmers results in an oversupply and consequent price depression, with farmers being unable to recoup their costs. Farmers don't seem too happy now and the government's procurement drives are unable to reach the producers and fulfill the procurement targets. Market monitoring have ceased altogether and prices of commodities are back to being decided by syndicates of a small number of importers, traders and suppliers with AL political cadres taking their "cuts" through extortions. So, there goes "food at afforadable prices". Education has also been taking a beating in this country for the last 2 decades and the AL promised to eliminate illiteracy by 2021 but within a month of the AL forming the government, its student cadres went to war against each other and against the BNP and Jamaat cadres, resulting in closure of a dozen universities and colleges. The AL claims that the existing education system is creating social discriminations and divisions, with madrassah education breeding extremists and so, the AL government is working out yet another "new education policy" which will make Bangladesh "digital". As to what the AL government means by "digital" is anyone's guess because more than 50 percent of the populace is entirely illiterate, unable to counts digits. People are beginning to ask whether "digital" means supplying lakhs of computers, at good profit margins, by members of the AL ruling elites and AL minded businessmen. That's about wraps up education and eradicating illiteracy. The trial of war criminals was one of the major commitments of AL and within a month after the government was formed, the law minister was all over the media with promises of immediately forming investigating agencies and tribunals and getting the trials over by December 2009. Till date there is no sight of any investigations or tribunals with the AL now speaking about taking time to ensure that nothing goes wrong with the trial or its process. People are asking what can go "wrong" when, in fact, there are no investigations, no tribunals and no trials. The BDR mutiny was followed by promises of immediate investigations of the massacres of 60 army officers, within 7 days, followed by trials by court martial of the culprits. The dates of submitting investigation reports kept on being deferred by first 15 days, then a month and now all that is in complete hibernation. With investigations nowhere near being completed and "submitted", the trials too are nowhere near being held. So much for the AL government's claim that the mutiny was so dangerous that it could lead to a civil war but for the timely "political" action of the PM. Cabinet meetings are held regularly or are presided over rather regally by the PM with her chiding the cabinet colleagues like errant children, threatening to show them the door, should they fail to deliver the "Vision 2021" and "Digital Bangladesh" and the only things that the Nation gets out of these cabinet meetings are ever more crop of promises which never get implemented. Remember, we started off by calling it "our" government because we elected it but now it's only the "AL" government because it's not delivering anything to "us". The AL government is not faring so well and people are wondering how they are going to live on empty stomachs filled with so many dreams for the next 5 years. |
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