The "myth" of deteriorating business confidence in Bangladesh - II When did you see a patient out of operation theatre start running faster than the patient used to run before going into the OT? Only a stupid or a person with questionable intention would expect that! We as a nation, we have somewhat accepted the use of analogy of a patient being treated by doctors to describe the ongoing reform measures and anti-corruption drives in Bangladesh - among many other things. The facts remain that the symbolic doctors here actually should have been the politicians - but they are not. We have some new faces, still they are doing well if you are willing to give them the time needed to do the job. And do not forget the two extra burden that came upon this government - a horrific flood and a stronger than usual cyclone Sidr. The politicians of the past are symbol of inefficiency and incompetence of our mature generation. Among the advisers, the closest of such thing (if you look at their past) is probably the law adviser. None others had any known and direct relationship with politics. We also know the context in which the nation has given this assignment to the new doctors to perform a very complicated operation that the nation need - cleanse the governance system, reduce corruption and hold a meaningful election within a reasonable timeframe. Why did the nation agree to this risky assignment? Do you want us to remind you? OK. Let us do that - remind you. The oath-taking original doctors used to cut out the pieces of organs from the body of the patients without (or with?) the permission of the patient and the so-called doctors ( i.e. politicians) used to sell those illegally to themselves or foreign buyers! Shame on you! Once the recent operation by the new group started - the past ones started a big hue-and-cry. The first issue - it seemed that - they tried to say there is no need for the operation. They claimed that their patient is actually a healthy. Second issue was, they tried to say, there is not enough time for the operation. Third issue was, they were saying, even though the patient is dying for treatment, you can not treat the patient because it is not written in the manual. The stupids do not understand the meaning of politics and they were crying about constitution. Funny, isn't it? Anyway, the inexperienced doctors are continuing there surgery - getting succes and reducing their mistakes as time goes - it can be so far characterized as a 'qualified' success including some hiccups. They are also being tested by extra burden with two subsequent natural calamities. Hope that nothing would move them away from the main target - which is to gift the nation with a solid base for good governance. The latest complain from the past politicians is this: the patient has lost its ability to run, fast enough. Who would tell those stupids that whenever some patient goes through a surgery, the immediate strength of the patient is weakened before it gets better? Even the prominent so-called expert from the immediate past government - who is supposedly young and dynamic - do not understand this basic thing. They all are complaining that the country's economy is spiraling downward. We would ask you this question - if you change driver (read: change the moral of the businessman, ethics of the business or update their knowledge about what responsible behaviour means), can the car drive as fast as it were? You have to complete the job of changing, then the car will pick up speed - surely and increasingly over time. But you have to go through the changing pain. Business confidence, export, FDI, investment everything will increase at some point. But before doing that - it would fall in the short term. Why? Because the people who used to do business, who used to invest and who used to control the market will be different persons (different in symbolic term to reflect a changed personality and morality, and also, different in that there will be new players). It takes time and it is a normal thing. If this fall does not occur, if it did not occur, that would have indicated an eye-wash on the part of Fakhruddin Government. The fact that it is happening, that indicates that things are going as expected. You do not need a doctorate in economics to understand that. Also, there are some other stories. Remember, how LC opening decreased right after the crack-down started? We wrote that is just the official decrease - not actual - indicating that the official numbers were blown artificially during pre-1/11 time. The story of export and FDI might have some similar stories in them. Increasingly, more remittance is coming through official channels. This means there is a less chance to manipulate the official rules and regulation to benefit from different government incentives that goes with export, import and FDI (manipulating official figures by the use of over or under invoice). All those corruptions - though hard to detect - will disappear now. So will the official numbers of exports and FDI may some irregularity in the short term. This will mean decrease in the official numbers - but be assured - this actually is good for the economy. To use the patient analogy - since the tumors are taken off the body - the body will seem thinner now. But it is actually healthier than before. Over time it will grow much healthier, and stronger - we hope. One valid question that may be asked that why are not experts agreeing with this analysis. Take any established experts in economics who are talking in the media - none of these experts are agreeing with this line of analysis. Why is that? We would like to indicate that these are mostly the experts who has learned to live in a corrupt environment in the past - they have lost there ability to think for themselves. These are the experts who had gone into limelight not because of their ability to think (they might be bright themselves, we are not questioning their inherent capability, but these people had risen to limelight since they knew how to co-exist with corrupt environment, had connection and used to abuse their power as an expert). Today, we are not necessarily saying that they are corrupt themselves, but since they have their established connections from the past, personal relationships with the corrupts, they always think about their friends. They see or highlight the half-empty side of the glass. Their point of view is not towards a change, rather they seek to validate their past behaviour, knowingly or unknowingly. New experts, those who can think for themselves, should come forward - media should look for new types of experts who see a half-full glass instead of half-empty glass. Hopefully, the new set of thinkers will be able to guide the nation to a new arena where everybody gets their due share based on merit, not based on connection. While the economy slows down a bit - which we are saying a healthy sign taking into account other aspects of the reforms - what the government should do? Do they just hope that some alternative businessmen will come up and replace the corrupt ones? Also, would they hope that the corrupt ones will also change themselves? NO. Government should proactively help new ones to start businesses. Create new businessman. Encourage experienced but honest busineesman, who were not doing well, they should do better now. More importantly, the government should make the supply chain of economic activities transparent. Also, government and private sector agents should establish some visible points (index, etc), in cooperation with universities and research organizations, so that they can publish data of economic status on a regular basis - weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually. These visible points would give checkpoints to the social, political, regulatory and economic actors and guide them in the proper direction. This is very important. Off course, there is another separate but big tumor within the body of the patient that the past and current doctors have so far decided not to operate on - albeit for different reasons. The past doctors betrayed to with their oath for not taking on the social tumor of war criminals who co-exists in the society of Bangladesh. The current doctors are, however, saying that this is tumor which should be fixed. But they seem to be convinced that they do not have enough time based on the current booking of the operation theatre. Whether this is a good decision or not - that would be defined by the actual status of the resources available to the doctors. Certainly, for the past doctors, who had about five years time, they should have addressed this problem. But they chose not to deal with the tumor that is co-existing in the society for a long time. For the current doctors, this particular social tumor is a different types of challenge. But it also relates to the oath. If they really beleive that its a tumor, they have to make sure that the tumor is taken care of by an able and willing group of doctors - whoever takes over the operation theatre after that. If they are not convinced that would happen at the earliest, the current doctors should consider whether to extend the reservation of the operation theatre - if they feel competent to do the additional operation. As is the case for real doctors most often, the main resource during a surgery is the time. The same is applicable for the current doctors, i.e for this CTG. If they change their mind or if the circumstances changes so they have to operate on the last remaining tumor, they should make sure that they have enough time for the surgery. They should talk to the past doctors, publicly or privately, to find out the real issues, the real factors why they did not operate the tumor. Shaming the past ones are easy, but getting cooperation from them might be what you really need. CTG should get all the players in confidence and review the declared roadmap to accomodate any changes that might be needed in the changed circumstances. Remember that the politicians of the past created the problem that lead to 1/11. But when the current CTG wanted to solve the problem by creating a complete voter list with photo ID and national ID, they were saying govt. should not take too much time. Politicans were demanding to hold elections in last June 2007! Solving a problem needs time. Solving of the war crimes problem will also need time. Politicians should volunteer that time to the govt if they are serious about the issue. The other cultuaral and civil soceity bodies should primarily come forward clearly on this issue. They should tell all the parties and the CTG that we are going through a special time now. There are good reasons behind that. It would not hurt the nation if extending this special time by one year - if that gives an opportunity for the biggest problem of the nation to be solved. The CTG can not volunteer the idea - they should not. It has to come from the civil society organizations. They should also use their leverage with the old guards to convince them to reach an understanding so the roadmap can become issue bound - instead of time bound. In our view, it seems it is the only responsible thing to do for the politicians. They should demand the solution even if that mean adjusting the roadmap, should there be a need. Politicians have to believe the current government if they can expect this outstanding issue to be solved by this governement. Let them use their judgement in terms of timeline. If you are not ready to extend that faith to the current CTG, you should stop embarrasing them. Also, they need to make sure that the patient will be in good hands right after the surgery. In our view, if the patient is operated successively (which might or might not be a good idea - based on the circumstances and resources available), there would be a need for some time in the incentive care unit (ICU) for the patient to recover surely and well. How does the ICU translate into the national politics? We are not sure. Its upto the readers to brainstorm and figure out. We also hope to share our thoughts on the topic in detail in near future. 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, policy makers, economists, columinsts in regular traditional media, 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 ================================================================================================== 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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