Interim govt urged to leave behind 3 critical legacies

Staff Reporter:
Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya on Sat-urday urged the interim government to leave behind three critical legacies to help steer the nation back on track.
The legacies he outlined are: making the gravity of corruption clear, tackling malgovernance and establishing an administrative framework conducive to building a balanced and sustainable economy.
Delieving the introductory speech at a symposium titled “White Paper and Thereafter: Economic management, Reforms and National Budget” at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC), the eminent economist said the government will have to expose the economic scenario of the country which has been suffering from corruption and malgovernance.
“They (govt) have really exposed the amount of malfeasance, corruption and malgovernance we were afflicted with,” he said.
Dr Debapriya, who is also the chief of the committee on White Paper on Bangladesh’s economy, chief said the government has to stabilize and consolidate the current macroeconomic situation of the country.
In this connection, he pointed out inflation as one of the components. “But there are some others, and with this economic stability there is social security and individual security also involved.”
But, he said, although the government has various types of steps in this connection, those are not effectively visible till now.
Dr Debapriya said that no reform outline is visible to induce administrative structural change for building a balanced, inclusive and sustainable economy. “We do not see any reform agenda con-cerning the economy and the associated institutions and the regulatory framework along with that. No specific speech from the government has come so far.”
The CPD Distinguished Fellow said it has been heard that there is a process on to prepare a mid-term budgetary framework. “Planning Ministry has formed a taskforce; we are waiting for the re-port of that.”
But, he said, if there is no midterm planning it might hinder the investment as it does not come for one year or one month. “For that investment it is needed to have a midterm vision, we do not see that at this moment,” he added.