Planning and Education Adviser Prof Wahiduddin Mahmud believes that the country may get an elected government next year that can address pressing issues like income inequality.
“Our government is meant to serve for a very short period. My personal belief is that we’ll see a politically elected government by next year. It’s my personal opinion. I am not sure what will eventually happen,” he remarked at a conference at a city hotel on Saturday.
His remarks came as he was responding to a question about how much time it might take for Bangladesh to become a developed nation.
Addressing the inaugural session of the four-day annual conference of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), the adviser said it requires long-term planning and resources, but the interim government has time and resources constraints for doing so.
Wahiduddin Mahmud went on saying the interim government has severe fund scarcity as a large portion of money has been siphoned off. “People parked their money in banks, but banks’ money has been laundered,” he stated.
“Although huge money exists in the balance sheet of large conglomerate like Beximco, that money don’t exist in the country. Their workers need to be paid, but where the money will come from?” he pointed out.
Describing two or three large projects like Padma bridge “good” schemes, many projects were undertaken as “prestige projects,” which he said put pressure on the state coffer.
In this context, building an equitable society is a daunting task, he said, adding the resource constraints have also made it tough for increasing investment on human capital, health and education.
“It has now become a moral dilemma whether we should spend more on public health or allocating more resources on purchasing dialysis machines,” commented Prof Mahmud.
Clarifying that Bangladesh has no other option other than exiting from the LDCs group in 2026, he suggested that Bangladesh seek preferential market facility from large market through bilateral talks.
As tools for successfully facing challenges stemming from LDCs exit, he emphasized increased competitiveness of local industries, free trade agreements and creating a pool of technically educated people.
Noted economist Prof Rehman Sobhan thinks that restructuring institutions is the key to removing inequality. But he said crony capitalism turned into oligarch during the Awami League government as electoral system went into the grip of businessmen.
As a result, 70 to 75 percent of MPs in the last parliament were businessmen who leveraged their political authority for personal business interests, he added.
“Crony capitalism has become a universal problem, deeply embedded in the political system. It extends beyond the parliament and has spread to the upazila and union levels, where political elites have taken on the role of ‘rural zamindars’,” he said.
Also, power is increasingly concentrated in the Prime Minister’s Office, and the principal political parties operate under undemocratic systems, with power concentrated in the hands of a few political leaders, Prof Rehman added.
According to him, it has been a new “Bangladesh paradox” that how the country became successful in poverty reduction and improvement in some key social indicators.
Addressing the event, Indermit S Gill, chief economist of the World Bank Group, said Bangladesh needs to be a much more open economy to avert the middle-income trap, adding that six billion people in middle-income countries are in a race against time now.
“You have to have an open economy when you are shifting from an investment-led phase to infusion-led phase. Bangladesh should be much more open regardless of what others are doing,” he stated.
“It should not be choosing between the US and China, manufacturing and services, or international and domestic policy reform for example,” he added.
According to him, a middle-income country needs to utilise crisis more strategically compared to low and higher income countries. Moreover, allocating human capital to the task efficiently is also a big challenge for them.
Moderating the event, Binayak Sen, director general at the BIDS, put emphasis on equal distribution of resources in light with the spirit of the anti-discriminatory July uprising.
