What price do you want to pay for good governance in Bangladesh?
Coming out of theoretical debates, we should be seriously working on policies that would help us get our country out of vicious cycle of corruption and create a virtuous cycle of good governance through engaging the competent people in local level leadership. That would eventually show the way towards national scope. We should take some lessons from Singapore in that regard.
Yes, this is a very relevant question that everybody in Bangladesh should be asking themselves now – what is the price of having a good governance system? How much is the opportunity cost? How much you want to pay proactively? How much money do we want to pay per year so we do not have to pay bribes, we do not have to wait in long lines without being sure of whether we would get the service we need.
Can you really put a price on good governance? Holistically, you can not. You have to give it a time so it builds over time.
But from process point of view, you have to start the process somewhere. Just like a Mukta, it has to start with Dhulikona. Similarly, we think the eventual good thing of good governance will be started on an initiative that is built on pure calculation of cash - by setting aside some money every month, every year to pay the new to be groomed leaders and to pay for the election processes. This is an education process that comes with a cost and we as a nation have to be prepared to pay that cost. Those days of leadership coming out of Nobab, Chowdhury, Jomindar, son of Omuk or Jamata of Tomuk should be over by now. Haven't we have enough of family politics? Rather the nation have be willing to pay the money so new set of leaders take this profession as a profession!
This money has to come from the national exchecker - from the taxes that people give. These groomed leaders, paid handsomely by its electorate will build a national atmosphere of development attitude and result orientation, we think.
There are 15 Crores people in Bangladesh. If the government allocates 10 Taka each year for each of its citizens - use that to pay the elected officials of local governments handsomely, would that be the starting "Dhulikona" that would initiate a buildup of good governance of "Mukta"? We think it will get us the desired result.
So, government has 150 Crores Taka each year to pay as salaries of the UP chairman, members, Pourshova Chairman and members and City Corporation Mayor and Ward Commissioners. How to allocate them? Proportionate to the relative number of the voters within any jurisdiction, we would suggest.
Ideally, every voter should be listed only once in any one of these local government offices. So, if we have a total of, say, 7.5 Crores voters nationwide, we have 20 Taka budget for every voter.
For example, if a UP election has 50,000 voters, it would have 10 Lacs Takas (50,000x20) for the salaries of the Chairman and Members each year. Government would guarantee the money to the UP members. Beyond that there would not be any guarantee for money, but the local council would be empowered to collect local taxes, raise local funds, issue development bonds in the stock exchanges in order to collect money for development.
How would that change the scenario? Is it possible to do something like this in our context?
We think it's absolutely possible and also, it would change the rule of the game totally. Just like nobody thought that the decoity by the Ershad/Khaleda/Hasina gongs can not be stopped, you know how wrong that is. Everything can be done if one wants to get to the destination. Some of that initiative will be responsive (which was the case of 1/11), that happened because of sheer irresponsibility of our national level politicians. Some of the initiatives will have to be proactive – which are a result of wisdom of the policymakers. We hope it would be done shortly.
To make it more interesting, government can also consider allocating budget based NOT on the number of voters listed, but based on the votes casted. But that should be something that could be consider as we progress and try to develop the democratic institutions further. Once something in line with what is proposed is done by the CTG for the local government elected officials, that would set the benchmark for something similar for national level elected officials (MPs, Ministers, PM, President, etc). But that can be dealt by the elected MPs if that is convenient to the CTG. But it should set the benchmark by determining the standard at the local government.
If you thought some of the ideas are worth of your reading time, please forward it to others. If you have an ear to the members of the CTG and policy makers, please forward it to them. If you have an ear to the journalists and news editors of the electronic media, discuss it with them. Hope they would look at the suggestions and give due diligence.
Thanks for your time,
Innovation Line
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Note: This is a freelance column, published mainly in different internet based forums. This column is open for contribution by the members of new generation, sometimes referred to as Gen 71. If you identify yourself as someone from that age-group and want to contribute to this column, please feel free to contact. Thanks to the group moderator for publishing the article.
We have not seen the Liberation War, but we know if we can free the country from corruption first, we will eventually get to other dreams soon. Because of corruption, we could not even get into information highway for years, let alone other dreams!
This is the kind of article for which we started this column. Because of ongoing mess, a gift from our older generation, we often get diverted. Now that it seems some sanity is returning in Bangladesh, we would try to go back to our original plan.
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