PM's jumbo entourage and some questions
THE prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, left Dhaka on Saturday for New York on a 10-day tour, during which she will attend the 65th United Nations General Assembly and several 'crucial' bilateral and multilateral meetings on the sidelines. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Saturday, her reasonably loaded itinerary includes a dinner to be jointly hosted by Bangladesh and the Maldives for the climate-vulnerable countries, a high-level plenary meeting on Millennium Development Goals, a breakfast meeting of the heads of state of the least developed countries, a meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to review climate changes impacts on MDGs in the region and, of course, her address to the UNGA session on September 27.
There is little doubt that the prime minister's tour is high profile and so it should be. What is, however, eminently questionable is the size of her entourage, which is about 100 strong and even features three poets. Interestingly, the three poets—Nirmalendu Goon, Moahadev Saha and Dr Muhammad Samad—have shown the concern that the government should have shown vis-à-vis the cost involvement in the tour. According to media reports, the three declined the government offer for them to travel with the prime minister in business class and settled for economy tickets, thereby saving the public exchequer around Tk 12 lakh. Reports have it that the government allocated Tk 5,70,476 each for their business class travel; if that is the minimum, the travel expenses for the entire entourage alone must be more than Tk 5 crore. Put together with accommodation and other expenses for members of the prime minister's entourage, the total cost of the prime minister's trip could run into crores of takas.
The most important question that needs to be asked is if it was actually necessary to tag so many people with the prime minister on her trip to the United States. In other words, had the size of the entourage been, say, a third of what it is now, would it have in anyway defeated the purpose of the prime minister's visit? The question is all the more justified when countries across the world, even the developed ones, are sweating it out to cut down on expenditure. Importantly still, Bangladesh certainly does not have the financial strength or the economic stability to undertake such extravagant ventures. Certainly, there are ways that the money allocated for the trip could have been better spent.
It needs to be pointed out, however, that such penchant for extravaganza is not particular to the Awami League-led government, although the entourage of the current prime minister is bigger than any in the past. Previous elected and unelected governments of the country have also not hesitated to spend lavishly on similar ventures. However, the profligacy of the previous governments in no way justifies the incumbents' decision to go on such a spending spree, not least because they are the ones who have trumpeted tirelessly their commitment to usher in positive changes in governance. Hence, the government certainly has some explaining to do, especially to the parliament, so as to prove that it is after all a necessary undertaking, and not a pleasure trip to keep its cronies happy.
PM's big entourage with many non-performers
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