Businessmen raised questions about the high interest rate of loans in the bank sector in the fight for survival. They also lack confidence in the existing situation. According to traders, the government should focus on other issues including fixing market management to control inflation. However, by keeping the interest rate high, traders are being put at risk, who are currently facing gas-electricity crisis.
Businessmen also fear that defaulted loans in the bank sector will increase after next March. Businessmen said that it is possible for the government to provide 5 percent jobs. And if the private sector is in difficulty, investment will not increase, and if investment does not increase, employment opportunities will not be created. The businessmen said these things in the dialogue titled ‘Democratic Reconstruction Dialogue-Economic Dialogue Context’ organized by the Center for Governance Studies (CGS) last Saturday at the Business Auditorium of Iskaton, Dhaka. Devapriya Bhattacharya, Head of National White Paper Drafting Committee of Interim Government and Honorary Fellow of Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) was the special speaker. CGS chair Munira Khan presided over the entire program and the organization’s executive director Zillur Rahman. The dialogue started with former student Sadiq Mahbub Islam and current student Suprabha Shobha Zaman of Dhaka University’s Department of Economics. They were involved in the quota reform and anti-discrimination movement.
What Debapriya Bhattacharya said:
If there was a need to file a case even in the case of theft, no police station would have taken it. Local leaders had to take permission to take cases of theft. Debapriya Bhattacharya commented that the country had gone to such a stage. He said, state institutions were crippled.
Debapriya said, ‘Hearing your words, it seems that a normal government exists in the country. After the accumulated anger of the people, the government has come in the face of a movement. This is not a normal government, which is less than three months old. There has been an intersection of the state apparatus, due to which new expectations have been created. The government is being run in a different situation, this recognition was not seen in anyone’s discussion.
Criticizing various actions of the previous government, Debapriya said, ‘National income has been played with, inflation data has been distorted, balance of trade problems have been created due to differences in export earnings. And the state institutions have been crippled. Devpriya said, “Everyone is talking about reforms.” But I am not thinking about the poor people. What will happen to the landless farmers, what will be the wages of the garment workers, we have to think about these things. And accountability must be demanded from everyone at every moment, otherwise it will not happen. There is a lot of talk about product prices. The government has taken several initiatives and steps. Even if the benefits do not come now, they may come in the future.
Debapriya also said, ‘He should be banned, he should be removed – these things are going on. But undermining political rights has economic implications. If one does not have political rights, his economic rights are reduced.
