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Books on Bangladesh
REPUBLICAN REFERENCE
Area (sq.km)
144,000
Population
144,319,628
Capital
Dhaka
Currency
taka (BDT)
President
Iajuddin Ahmed
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Update No: 011 - (30/11/06)
POLITICAL TURMOIL CONTINUES
In the last few days, activists set fire to two election commission offices
in Bangladesh as a 14-party alliance began a new campaign to force the ouster of
top election officials. The commission had scheduled parliamentary elections for
January 21, but the activists ridiculed calls by the Awami alliance to delay
poll announcements until the commission was reorganized and the voters' list
updated. The alliance accused the election commission of sacrificing its neutral
approach by supporting their main rival Begum Khaleda Zia, who ended her
five-year term as prime minister in October, and her Bangladesh Nationalist
Party (BNP). Protesters scuffled with police, but security forces prevented them
from reaching the headquarters. As a result of the political turmoil in
Bangladesh, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, has sent one of his top aides to
the country to ensure that the general elections are held in a peaceful and as
transparent a manner as possible. Craig Jenness, director of the UN Electoral
Assistance Division, will be in Bangladesh to meet with the Chief Advisor of the
caretaker government Iajuddin Ahmed and other senior officials, election
authorities, and various party and interest group leaders. What seems tragic in
terms of Bangladesh's current political scenario is that while elections offer
as democratic an opportunity for citizens to avail of, the political unrest and
agitation caused by the opposition activists has compelled an outside third
party such as the UN to intervene, to ensure that elections are held as
peacefully as possible. This by itself questions the country's own ability to
maintain a true democratic process. A neutral caretaker government is supposed
to organize the general election in Bangladesh within 90 days after taking
office. To reiterate the background to this political turmoil, the former ruling
BNP-led 4-party government led by former prime minister Khaleda Zia ended its
tenure on October 27, and handed over the power to the caretaker government led
by President Iajuddin Ahmed on October 29. The former main opposition Awami
League-led 14-party combine led by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had
staged three rounds of countrywide blockade since October 28, demanding
reconstitution of the Election Commission.
BANGLADESH AND SOUTH KOREA
Bangladesh and South Korea seem to have come together by forging a new
partnership in improving health services. The newly re-modeled Bangladesh-Korea
Friendship Hospital (BKFH) has been inaugurated at Savar. Park Seong Ung, Korean
Ambassador to Bangladesh, inaugurated the hospital at a simple ceremony. The
hospital which was established with the Korean Government's grant in 1998 was
recently renovated by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) under a
project: 'Remodeling of the Hospital' to provide better medical services. While
addressing the ceremony, the Korean envoy reiterated his government's
cooperation in the health sector which they consider a priority for Bangladesh.
Park also expressed the hope that this hospital would provide more efficient and
timely services to its patients. The Bangladesh-Korea partnership in the area of
improving medical science is a good example that Dhaka should emulate especially
because forging partnerships with other countries in South East Asia will enable
the country to engage in further constructive relationships with other South
East Asian countries.
BANGLADESH AND PAKISTAN
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz recently commented that Pakistan and Bangladesh
have enjoyed a very deep relationship based on shared faith, common history,
culture and heritage. Pakistan has applauded the conferment of the Nobel Prize
for a Bangladeshi economist by stating that this is a source of joy and pride
for Pakistan. The Prime Minister talked about regional, international, defense
and security issues, the need to enhance regional cooperation, and the
government's priorities in the social sectors. Pakistan is promoting regional
cooperation to accelerate development and prosperity in the region and is keen
on using SAARC as an important venue to promote regional cooperation, peace,
prosperity and harmony in South Asia. Talking of the regional situation, the
Prime Minister said that Pakistan, because of its geo-strategic location, is
playing a pivotal role in maintaining peace and stability in a region, which is
facing many challenges and wants resolution of all outstanding issues through
dialogue. The South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has
allowed countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh and even India to come
together in the pursuit of common goals such as maintenance of security and
stability in South Asia for the last two decades. And, Pakistan's support to
Bangladesh should not appear to be something too novel as both countries were
born of a common history. However, Pakistan's allegiance to Bangladesh and vice
versa is significant from the point of view of their relations with India. It
will be interesting to see in future years whether Pakistan tries to use
Bangladesh's support to add pressure on India with regard to the Kashmir issue.
Until that happens, Pakistan is content in securing America's attention on this
issue.
ECONOMY
According to a report in Bangladesh's Financial Times, national and
international organizations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
the Asian Development bank (ADB), have lowered the projected gross development
product (GDP) from an impressive 6.5 per cent to six. GDP growth is predicted to
slump down to 6.0 per cent in FY 2007, mainly reflecting political uncertainty
over investment and business decisions in the lead-up to the general elections
in January 2007. It appears that Bangladesh's historical experience bears
testimony to the fact that any major political upheaval prior to the conduct of
elections has inevitably hurt the country's economy by downgrading its GDP rate.
Since a caretaker government took office three weeks ago to prepare for the
polls, Bangladesh has witnessed a political stalemate, violence that has killed
18 people, street demonstrations and blockade of ports and industrial
establishments. A recent IMF report states that the main problem that political
unrest poses is the following: political tensions pose a potential risk to
macroeconomic management and implementation of structural reforms. Frequent
demonstrations, work stoppages, and a highly contentious political environment
are likely to continue till January 2007 elections which might impact different
sectors of the economy, such as the power sector. Also, Bangladesh cannot afford
to jeopardize its internal growth especially since, externally, it continues to
be exposed to an increase in oil prices and intensified competition in world
textile markets which represent the major risks to its economy. The UK-based
Economist Intelligence Unit, in its country projection, said that political
uncertainly would slow down the growth rate to 6.2 per cent in current fiscal
year from last year's 6.7 per cent.
TRAGEDY OF FRAUDULENT WORK PERMITS
In a separate issue concerning manpower, export of manpower is one of the
main pillars that support the Bangladesh economy. Remittances sent by hard
working Bangladeshis abroad form the major artery for its economy by paying
substantially for import costs and giving vital support to the balance of
payments of the country. But the manpower sector is also shot through with very
great crimes, corruption and the consequent tragedies. The latest such incident
was noted last week when 31 women from the village areas of Comilla and
Narayanganj were found stranded at Zia airport after they failed to board an
airplane to go to Lebanon. They had valid passports and visas but lacked genuine
work permits. A fraudulent manpower recruiting agency had taken over Taka 50,000
from each of them. All of the victimized women live a life of penury and had
persuaded parents or relatives in equally distressful conditions to sell assets
like lands or borrowed the sums as loans to pay off the fraudulent recruiting
agency. Now, they are in very hopeless and disheartened conditions and know not
how they will clear their debts or maintain themselves. This incident is a
symbolic one in the otherwise lucrative manpower trade. While four out of five
may succeed in going abroad to take up employment, the fifth becomes the victim
of fraud. This has been happening year after year when Bangladesh's competitors
in manpower exports from neighboring India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have been
streamlining their manpower trade with great beneficial effects of the same for
individuals and the national economies. Internally, these countries have
developed conditions where committing of frauds in the manpower export sector
has become very difficult. The foreign missions of these countries are also
found to be reasonably active in ensuring the rights and interests of their
expatriate workers abroad. Therefore, there is an urgent need to prepare
policies and implement them sincerely, for Bangladesh to realize its great
potential from manpower exports. The first task in order would be ensuring that
unscrupulous manpower agencies cannot function in any form. All authorized
agencies must be licensed and made to operate in as transparent a manner
possible. Also, only government approved fees should be taken from different
categories of workers. The Bangladeshi missions abroad need to be geared to play
out their due role to fully meet the representational needs of the country's
expatriate workers. Moreover, training opportunities for potential expatriate
workers must increase with a view to create skilled manpower in different areas
for overseas job markets. Finally, financial organizations should be encouraged
to run schemes to extend easy loans for the overseas workers to help them in the
payment of their fees to recruitment agencies and meet other costs.
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