Country moved to kleptocracy from crony capitalism: Debapriya Bhattacharya

Debapriya Bhattacharya, chief of the committee in charge of preparing the white paper on the state of the economy of Bangladesh, has said the country was turned into a kleptocracy from “crony capitalism” during the government of Bangladesh Awami League.

He further said everybody, from parliament to government executives, had collectively become a part of these looting while local politicians, businesspersons and former and current bureaucrats associated them.  “The origin of this kleptocracy was the general election of 2018.”

Distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Debapriya Bhattcharya, said this at the press conference held by the committee to prepare a white paper on the state of economy in Bangladesh at the NEC conference room in the capital’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Monday.

Other members of the committee also addressed the press conference.

Speaking regarding who contributed the most to the establishment of kleptocracy, Debapriya Bhattacharya said the committee has met several people from different status and profession. At first, it was assumed that the politicians and businesspersons were the main force behind this. However, it came up in the end that the former and current bureaucrats played the key role in the process to establish kleptocracy.

The CPD distinguished fellow also mentioned the four most corrupted sectors of the country – the banking sector, infrastructure, power and information technology (IT) sector respectively.

Debapriya feels stability in the financial sector and law and order situation is quite essential at the moment. Otherwise, the plan for long term reform could be endangered.

The chief of the committee to prepare the white paper also mentioned five recommendations for the interim government.

First, disclose all the initiatives taken by the government in the first five months. Second, inform the people about the reform initiatives as the next six months are quite crucial for the country. For instance, people should know about the inflation rate, interest rate and the value of the money. The interim government should be brought under accountability as well.

Third, nobody would invest without a clear understanding of the future outcome. He suggested taking a two-year-plan for this. Fourth, he feels there is no reason to stall the process of graduating from the least developed countries (LDC). Bangladesh fulfilled three indicators. So the decision could be reconsidered in case of any major financial crisis before 2026. The time has not come yet.

Fifth, holding a development forum summit early next year with the development partners, countries that provide us with market facilities, foreign investors and delegations from countries where we export labour force where the government will highlight the overall situation of the country.

Speaking regarding the country’s graduation from LDC, Debapriya Bhattacharya said, “Bangladesh should not be among the LDCs considering its ability and size. If we somehow fail to graduate from LDC, then we would be blamed for destroying a prosperous economy.”

“We have to see the root of the people (exporters with market facilities) who are lobbying for deferring the country’s graduation from LDC. They were mostly influential MPs or politicians. We have seen how a specific export sector was provided with monopolistic facilities,” he pointed out.

Addressing the press briefing, another member of the committee and former lead economist at the Dhaka office of the World Bank, Zahid Hussain said, “We have been thinking of being in the risk of falling in the trap of middle income countries. Now we are saying that we are already in that trap. All the developments were shown on pen and paper for a long time. However, most of these development works didn’t see light. We fall into the trap of being a middle income country due to inconsistency in our calculation.”

Committee member and CPD distinguished fellow Mostafizur Rahman said the future generation will have to bear the burden of money looted in the names of different mega projects during the rule of Bangladesh Awami League.

Bangladesh University of Engineering Technology (BUET) professor M Tamim said there was no evidence of looting in the power and energy sector on papers. The previous government received an investment of USD 33 billion in the two sectors. Only some 10 per cent (3 billion) of this has changed hands.

South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (SANEM) executive director Selim Raihan said the last three polls were heavily flawed. The democratic institutions have been destroyed. The old players (those who destroyed these) might return without any institutional reform.”

Among the others who addressed the press conference were committee members AK Enamul Haque, Abu Yusuf, Tasnim Siddique and Imran Matin.