‘We cannot ignore responsibility’

Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD) Minister Muhammad Tajul Islam has said the number of banks has increased for the sake of Bangladesh’s economy, but a lack of good governance and improper regulations are unfortunate.

“We cannot ignore our responsibility,” he said while speaking at the conference titled “Public Hearings: National Development and Local Realities” organised by Citizen Platform at the seminar hall of Krishibid Institution in the capital on Saturday.

The minister also said, “Once there were only four banks in our country, but now many private banks have been set up to meet people’s demand.”

Mentioning that irregularities in the banking sector started occurring during the rule of the BNP government in 1990s, he said, “We should change our mindset and stop playing blame game.”

“If we fail to do work properly, people will criticise us. And we cannot avoid our responsibility. I think that we all should work together to deal with this issue.”

The Citizen Platform organised seven citizen consultation meetings at subregional level across the county from June to October this year to understand how balanced national development has reached grassroots level.

Speakers at the conference said not only the participation of women in the development process has increased in the country but also violence against them has increased.

Despite infrastructural development in the health and education sectors, the quality of service has not improved. As government institutions are weak, marginalised people are deprived of their services, they added.

Prof Rehman Sobhan, Chairman of Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) who presided over the conference, said as the problems have arisen locally, so these problems should be resolved locally.

He also said public representatives should be elected through free and fair elections as per the democratic process.

Anu Muhammad, Professor, Department of Economics, Jahangirnagar University said the government’s mindset of denying the problem is the biggest problem.

“If there is a mentality of denying the problem, there will be people’s resistance. The government should keep it in mind,” he said.

Hossain Zillur Rahman, Executive Chairman of Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) said, the country is seeing development but inequality is also increasing. He also thinks that such disparity could have been reduced if accountability was ensured.

Serajul Islam, emirates professor of Dhaka University, blamed exploitation as the cause of inequality. He said Bangladesh has a history of 50 years of progress and discrimination. But the main spirit of the liberation war was social revolution.

Putting emphasis on reforms of the capitalist system and decentralisation of power, he thinks that democracy will not be established only through the elections.

Stressing the need for creating healthy political environment, BNP lawmaker Rumeen Farhana has said state, society and people cannot be healthy if democratic politics is not ensured in the country.

She also demanded that the government should increase the budgetary allocation in the social sector rather than developing infrastructures.