Looking back: Interim govt. couldn't do it, but would the next government have the courage to execute this plan?
We really hope that next elected government, if that really happens(!), would listen to this.
Following is a slightly modified version of the previous article, the content is still valid.
Corruption is an economy - ignoring this would be fatal
We all hate corruption, want it to be stopped and punish the culprits. These are all good, but can you sustain the situation if you stop all the corruption in a short period of time? We do not think so and past history says that you have to do something else in addition to punish the corrupts. Let me clarify.
We often forget the economic aspect of corruption. If 0.1% percent people of the country is getting the core benefits of corruption, many of the rest 99.9% people of the country is somehow involved in this corruption. It's a play where the rules are skewed - if you take the morality out of the equation.
Now, if you try to stop the corruption in six months, I would think it will be extremely difficult unless there are economic activities created to counter the economic aspect of the corruption. When corruption stops, income of all the foot-soldiers are stopped too. But these footsoldiers are not the main culprits! You can blame them for not being honest until death, but you can not / should not punish them. If the government thinks that these people will change themselves and find new way of income that will be asking too much from them. This expectation is not pragmatic. So, what do you do to counter the negative effects of stopping corruption?
Strategically its not that hard it seems. By stopping the everyday corruption, the government will be shaking the core of the current economic structure of the soceity. That is good. But you have to counter the effect with some other things - you have to inject energy into the ecomony from the positive side. Its like when you start to quit smoking. You need something to help during the transition - and it is hard time but doable.
Several things comes to my mind. Here I would indicate two among many other possibles. The government should do two things: give extra incentives to businessmen to take projects (big ones, i mean) in a urgent basis so more employment is created. All the stakeholders who thinks the government has to become successful, they will have to take new projects that create employment, even if that is financially risky in economic terms. But if enough number of people does that, the risk will be minimized or gone.
Also, the government should take some big infrastructure project very soon. Create a road infrastructure with 8-lane highways to connect all the six divisional headquarters. Name them as "Bivagio Road" type with grade one quality.
Create a road infrastructure with 6-lane highways to connect all the 64 district headquarters. Name them as "Zilla Road" type with grade two quality.
Create a road infrastructure with 4-lane highways to conect all the 460 sub-district headquarters. Name them as "Upazilla Road" type with grade three quality.
Create a road infrastructure with 2-lane highways to connect the unions. Name them as "Union Road" type with grade four quality.
Grade one and Grade two roads should be non-stop. As long as a car has fuel and the driver/passenger do not want to get out for some reason, they will not have to stop. Make this vision clear to the people and ask them to participate.
Take a immediate plan to stop all the river erosion. National river training and land reclamation projects needs to be done. If some river erosion cannot be stopped, make sure the rehabilitation is planned. The government has to make it clear that nobody - Nobody will be
allowed to lose their home or land by the will of nature/river. If nature is allowed to take its course, the citizens will be taken care of. This should be made clear to the citizens that it is a right of the citizens (not being evicted by neither by other citizens nor the river) - so they start expecting the same from the elected governments. Also, there is a concept of "Compact Township" in the development literature. The government should start examining this in relation to the overall development policy of the country. It is widely beleived that one has to learn from that literature in order to solve today's problem. Also, there should be incentives for the educated families to adopt their second child from poor neibourhoods within the country if they want a second child.
Some of you might be thinking where would the governemnt get all the money. I would like to say to them that if one know economics, really understands how money works, how macroeconomics works and take advantage of the connected world, its possible. Just look around the countries where governments are spending billions of dollars to kickstart their economies out of the looming recession. Compared to them, we have a growing economy. So, spending extra money is NOT a problem, the problem is whether you will be able to manage the extra spending well to make sure that resources are not wasted.
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 columnists 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
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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 as Creative Commons contents.
Use ICT to practice democracy.
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