Faced with load shedding, people won’t take development tablets: Abbas

Stating that load-shedding can lead to the government's fall, BNP senior leader Mirza Abbas on Monday said people of the country can no longer be fooled by development tablets.

"The government has long been feeding the people of Bangladesh with development tablets. It can't talk about development by carrying out load-shedding. So, the development tablets now won't work anymore," he said.

Abbas was speaking at the council of Ramna and Shabagh thana units of Dhaka South City BNP at the Institution of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh.

Abbas, a BNP standing committee member, said people of Sri Lanka are now vomiting after overeating the development tablets. "They now don't take the development tablets. After ruining the country in the name of development, their president fled to Singapore."

He said Awami League leaders have also worked out their escape routes in advance.

He said the government used to brag that there is no shortage of power as they could reach the electricity to people's houses through the quick rental power plants.

"The government is now making contradictory comments as they're going to introduce load-shedding from tomorrow (Tuesday). If this is the fact, then why did you set up quick rental by spending so much money?" the BNP leader asked.

He also said the owners of quick rental power plants will now get money sitting idle, no matter whether they generate electricity or not.

"If people have to endure load-shedding even after so much plundering of public money in the name of quick rental in the power sector, I think it can be the reason for the government's fall as the common people are becoming intolerant," Abbas observed.

He also alleged that the country is now facing a serious crisis of dollars as the ruling party leaders indulged in widespread siphoning off money abroad.

"It's now being directed that if you have to import anything from abroad, then you have to take permission from the Bangladesh Bank. It is my liberty to business. I'll open the LC and import goods by sending dollars. But why has our country no dollars? It's happened due to siphoning off dollars abroad through the airport," the BNP leader alleged.

Referring to newspaper reports, he said three-four billion dollars from Bangladesh are being deposited regularly in Swiss banks." If my country's dollar goes to Swiss banks, how will the people of this country live?"