Prime minister's overseas visits
Courtesy New Age 4/12/09
After letting her foreign minister do the jet setting, the prime minister herself has decided to do some of it herself. In the last few months, she has been to a number of countries, almost all for multilateral meetings. While the foreign ministry has heralded all these as successful visits, it would be worth the while if some bright journalists covering the foreign ministry would do some research to find out whether the foreign ministry was playing its usual role, playing up to the prime minister or has there been something at least that the prime minister has earned for the country from these visits that have been taken place at significant costs to taxpayers' money.
Those with some knowledge of diplomacy and how foreign affairs are conducted would know that the multilateral forums are places where someone of the rank of a prime minister does not need an invitation to attend. Therefore, the prime minister did not need any invitation to undertake the visits she has so far made to address these multilateral forums. No real purpose has also been served by these visits. However, as it has now become a practice, in such visits, the prime minister is accompanied by members of her family who take precedence over all other members of her delegation that includes ministers, senior officials, etc. For example, when the prime minister met President Obama and Mrs Obama during a reception, it was her daughter who was with her when she was photographed with the US President and the First Lady. At her UN address, it was her sister who preceded the foreign minister in the seating arrangements. It is now known on authoritative sources that the prime minister's son has in his name card written that he is an adviser to the prime minister.
For a party that came to office publicising the alleged interference of Tarique Zia in the activities of the government, the indulgences given to the incumbent prime minister's sister, son and daughter in affairs of the state is indeed unacceptable. In case of the sons of the former prime minister, notwithstanding the accusations that have been brought against them, it must be said that they were seldom seen in the affairs of the state in the manner we see the family members of the present prime minister.
Referring back to the prime minister's foreign trips, it is not just the members of the prime minister's family are making merry at the expense of the taxpayers; a lot of the government officials and hangers-on of the party in power are also enjoying free travel at the taxpayers' expense without having anything substantive to do in these trips. Take Ambassador Ziauddin for example. After hanging on to the prime minister for a year, he has recently been given the title of Ambassador-at-Large with the rank of a minister without anyone explaining what this job entails where the prime minister has a foreign ministers and people with ministerial ranks galore to advise her on foreign affairs. The way the prime minister's overseas trips are arranged must be the best examples of squandering of public money without considering legality or ethics. Besides her family members, at least 40 people accompany her on these innocuous trips with almost all of them having nothing to do at all to be of assistance to her except being present at her press conferences and other engagements where they fill up the seats in the absence of foreign invites who see no point in coming to such meetings/engagements.
It is true that the BNP did a lot of things that were not proper and the AL criticised the party rightly with the media in support. The AL is now doing everything for which it criticised the BNP and more openly. The strange thing is that a large part of the media that had put the BNP on the grill is letting the AL go free.
Rashed Ahmed
Gulshan, Dhaka
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