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Doctors’ absenteeism, bribery, middlemen’s menace and corruption limit health services at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the country’s largest government hospital that attends 2000 new patients a day on an average, an anti-graft watchdog said in a report Thursday.
   Food worth Tk 1.16 crore is wasted annually at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital as patients can not eat it for inferior quality, while bribes paid to hospital staff and middlemen for beds amount to Tk 40.48 lakh, Transparency International Bangladesh said in its report.
   Patients spend Tk 4.02 lakh in addition to the government-fixed fees for admission coupons.
   TIB released the survey report at a roundtable revealing a dismal picture of the health services provided by the country’s largest government hospital. Chairman of TIB trustee board professor Muzaffer Ahmad presided over the roundtable, attended by medical practitioners from different hospitals, clinics and NGOs at the National Press Club.
   Hospital authorities prepare food for 1760 patients per day, but 704 patients do not take it, meaning wastage of Tk 31,680 per day on food bills. About 31 per cent of the patients who take hospital foods complained of inferior quality of the foods served.
   Drugs meant for free distribution are available at nearby medicine shops, as the report detected involvement of a section of employees in pilfering medicines from the hospital store, said the report.
   Physicians of the hospital referred 65 per cent indoor patients and 50 per cent outdoor patients to specified private diagnostic centres for pathological tests. Patients had to pay Tk 140 on an average to get pathological tests done at the DMCH, the report said.
   About 35 per cent outdoor patients reported that either the duty doctors themselves or their peons advised them to go the private chambers. About 31 per cent patients complained that they had to pay Tk 96 to agents on an average for health services at outpatient department, while 37 per cent alleged that they did not get desired help from agents even after making extra payment.
   Seventy one per cent patients in outdoor found the physicians were absent during duty hours and 20 per cent indoor patients complained the physicians did not visit them.
   Despite all the odds, 60 per cent patients expressed their satisfaction at the services they got from doctors.
   According to the report, 20 per cent admitted patients had to stay on the floor for at least four days after getting admission and 32 per cent of them had to bribe ward boys or middlemen for getting beds.
   Though the admission form rate is Tk 5.5, patients had to pay Tk 11.5 on an average.
   Sixty per cent employees were recruited in exchange of bribes ranging from Tk 50,000 to Tk 2.5 lakh per person, the report says.
   To reduce corruption and mismanagement, the TIB report recommended increase of beds, establishment of complaint sections, regular auditing, monitoring of duties of physicians, nurses and employees, installing of close-circuit cameras at the wards, increase the supply of medical equipments and increase the number of nurses.
   Currently, DMCH has 594 physicians, 653 staff nurses and 673 student nurses with 1137 administrative staffs working for 1441 general beds, 143 paying-beds, 43 double cabins and 30 single cabins. On an average, a total of 1432 people visit at the outpatient department every day, while emergency wards attend 450 patients. About 184 patients get admitted to the hospital daily on an average.

The government between March 15, 2005 and March 15, 2006 brought back home 284 Bangladeshi women, children and men, who had been languishing in prisons and detention centres abroad for not having proper visa or other valid documents, a home ministry report revealed on Thursday.
   These people trafficked with counterfeit papers were brought back to the country in collaboration with various non-government organisations, the report of the home ministry’s Monitoring Cell for Combating Trafficking in Women and Children said.
   Most of the returnees had been trafficked to the Middle East countries and suffered detention of various lengths there, it added.
   According to home ministry sources, about 5,000 more Bangladeshis are still held in foreign jails and detention centres.
   Some networks of unauthorised manpower exporters have been regularly trafficking young men and women, luring them with lucrative jobs abroad, the deputy secretary (immigration) of the ministry, Abdur Rauf, told New Age on Thursday.
   On reaching their destination countries, the unfortunate youths are deserted by the middlemen and do not find the jobs they paid for, he said.
   While some of the male victims seek and sometimes find illegal employment, the women are at times forced into the sex industry, Abdur Rauf said, describing the plight of the trafficked people.
   According to the deputy secretary, sometimes people even volunteer into the trap from an urge to leave the country where employments are hard to find and the hope that once they reach their destination countries they would be able to manage a good job.
   ‘We cannot stop them from going abroad when they have valid travel documents. But eventually some of them face deportation, when they violate the immigration rules of the destination countries,’ Abdur Rauf said.
   Most of them do not want to return home, as each of them spends a fortune to cover the travelling cost, and so provide the authorities concerned with fake home addresses in Bangladesh to avoid immediate deportation, he added.
   According to the immigration high official, a large number of Bangladeshis trafficked by the rackets of fraud manpower exporters are still being detained in the Middle East and some European countries.
   He termed the situation miserable and said the ministry is closely monitoring to check trafficking in the guise of manpower export.
   At a meeting with the media professionals on Wednesday, a number of NGOs working against human trafficking said the media outlets should step up information dissemination on trafficking to fight the evil.
   The trafficked women and children are usually forced into prostitution, pornography industry, begging, forced labour, and even forced marriage, they told the media people.
   The Nari Unnayan Shakti and Bangladesh Journalists’ Forum against Human Trafficking jointly hosted the meeting between counter-trafficking agencies and journalists from both print and electronic media at the Dhaka Reporters Unity to update them about the trafficking scenario and motivate them to increase publication and airing of awareness-raising reports on the issues concerned.
   Migration and trafficking are generally understood as two separate processes, but the two are very closely related, observed Nishat A Chowdhury, an adviser to the International Organisation for Migration, at the session.
   Their differences lie in the outcomes. Although both trafficking and migration involve movement, the trafficked persons are those who are exposed to harms, ranging from minor financial losses to utter ruination of life through slavery, forced prostitution, etc, Nishat explained.
   She stressed running more investigative media reports on trafficking in persons, especially when it takes place in the guise of migration.
   Farida Yasmin, president of the BJFHT said the forum was working on formulating a set of guidelines for sensitive reporting on trafficking.
   The women and children affairs secretary, Kamal Uddin Ahmed, said while working on the issue hand in hand the government and non-government bodies should focus on people vulnerable to trafficking and provide vocational training and education for foreign job-seekers.

Thirty-three out of 37 parliamentary standing committees — crucial for transparency in governance — have failed to hold enough meetings in a breach of House rules.
   In line with the Rules of Procedure of the Jatiya Sangsad, the parliamentary standing committees must sit at least once a month.
   But 33 committees failed to follow the rules, an official with the parliament secretariat told the news agency.
   The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Jute and Textile was to hold its last meeting on Thursday as the tenure of the government expires on October 27.
   The committees on four ministries — law, agriculture, primary and mass education and energy — sat each month since the watchdogs were formed on July 15, 2003.
   The committee on ministry of jute and textile convened 14 meetings, home affairs 16, liberation war affairs 16, communications 17, food and disaster management 17, planning 17, youth and sports 20 and finance 21 meetings in about 39 months.
   The Rules of Procedure empowers the speaker of the House to order the secretary of the parliament secretariat to convene meetings, if committee chairmen failed to sit each month. But the speaker Jamiruddin Sircar, did not ask the secretary to do so.
   Awami League lawmaker and member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Home Affairs, Mohammad Nasim, wrote letters to Sircar to discuss law and order, as the committee chairman did not hold meetings for eight months. The opposition did not hear from Sircar.
   The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, who heads ministries of establishment, defence, primary education and energy, did not attend any meeting.
   Senior ministers, including finance minister M Saifur Rahman and housing and public works minister Mirza Abbas, skipped most meetings.
   Saifur attended only five meetings on the planning ministry and seven meetings on the finance ministry. The committees made about 2,500 recommendations.
   A total of 134 parliamentary subcommittees were formed during the 4-party alliance government rule by the standing committees to uncover irregularities in ministries, but most failed to prepare or submit probe reports.
   ‘Very often, the main opposition boycotted the House, but its lawmakers contributed well to functioning of standing committees,’ Sircar told the news agency.
   He said the committees performed ‘well’ — a claim disputed by the opposition.
   ‘The committees could not function properly, as the prime minister warned the committee chairmen of not talking about corruption,’ Abdul Hamid, deputy leader of the opposition, told the news agency. Transparency could be ensured, if the committees were allowed to function ‘without interference’, he said.

The local administration ordered Section 144 of the entire Hatiya upazila in Noakhali on Thursday over a series of clashes between the activists of the BNP and the Awami League and political programmes of the two rivals.
   The administration imposed Section 144 when the leaders and activists of the both parties gathered to hold rallies at the same place at noon.
   The upazila unit Awami League earlier at 11:00am announced to bring out a stick procession to protest at Wednesday’s attack on the houses of their leaders and activists.
   As the Awami League announced the programme, the BNP also announced a programme at the place at the same time.
   On Wednesday evening, the Hatiya unit BNP brought out a stick procession and some activists ransacked the houses and offices of the local Awami League leaders protesting at Tuesday’s attack on their leaders.

The judiciary of the country as a whole has been destroyed by a provision that makes a judge head of the caretaker government.
   The observation came at a roundtable on ‘Free and fair election, present perspective and our thoughts’ held at the BILIA auditorium at Dhanmondi in the city.
   Speakers were of the view that if the election commission could have been made independent and powerful in real sense, there would have been no need for the caretaker government.
   The Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs and the International Society for Ensuring Fair Election organised the roundtable which were divided into two sessions.
   Wali-ur-Rahman, director of the BILIA, and Prof Dr Khondokar Ashraf Hossain, chairman of ISEFE, chaired the two sessions.
   Shaymal Dutta, editor of the daily Bhorer Kagoj, was the moderator while Selim Omrao Khan presented the keynote paper.
   Speakers said the election issue was not the only problem in Bangladesh there are also other problems that need to be solved.
   In this regard, they stressed the need for reform of politics, political parties and changes in outlook of politicians.
   They said the entire bureaucracy was fully politicised to serve political interests. So, none can say for certain that free and fair election will be possible if Justice KM Hasan and the CEC quit the election process.
   The alliance government has politicised the administration in such a way that whatever changes are made, their chosen bureaucrats would shoulder the administrative responsibilities under the caretaker government, they added.
   Professor Anwar Hosssain said, ‘The caretaker government system suffers defects at the very beginning’.
   Professor AAMS Arefin Siddiqui said, ‘Each and every citizen of the country wants a free and fair election.’
   He questioned the possibility of a free and fair election if the reform proposals placed by the opposition combine were accepted.
   The alliance government is using the government media for its election campaign treating it as its own property, he added.
   GM Kader, MP, said, ‘The black money-holders and the musclemen, taking weakness of democracy, are destroying the society. If they cannot be checked, there will be no way left to rescue the nation.’
   Professor Kamrul Islam, Nazmul Ahsun Kalimullah, Hossain Toufique Emam, Mohammad Jamir Uddin and Subhas Singha Roy attended the roundtable.

A memorial plaque has been placed on the grave of Bir Shreshtha Motiur Rahman in the Martyred Intellectuals’ Graveyard at Mirpur in the city.
   The memorial plaque has been constructed under a project for setting up plaques on the graves of seven Bir Shreshthas to highlight their contributions to the war of independence.
   The state minister for liberation war affairs, M Rezaul Karim, on Thursday formally inaugurated the plaque, which has been built at a cost of Tk 11.43 lakh.

The Detective Branch early Thursday arrested Killer Khokan, regional leader of an extremist party at his house in the Nawapara industrial town near the upazila health complex in Jessore.
   He is an accused in more than a dozen cases, including the murder of Abahynagar upazila unit Jatiyatabadi Dal organising sectetary Sarwar Jahid Swapan.
   He is suspected to have been involved in the killing of Akram Ali Mollah, Abhaynagar Upazila Health and Family Planning Officer.

The leaders of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Port on Thursday put out a call for the present government to fully implement the Phulbari agreement before it hands over power to the caretaker government.
   The committee convener, Sheikh Muhammad Shaheedullah, during a sit-in agitation programme near Zero Point in Dhaka said the alliance government had fulfilled a portion of the agreement, but had delayed the full implementation.
   The agreement was signed between government and the committee on August 30 to calm the Phulbari movement where five people were killed in police firing.
   The people in the area have been opposing the proposed open-pit coal extraction from the mine by the Asia Energy Corporation.
   The committee staged the sit-in for an hour in front of the energy ministry to push for the demand.
   Before the agitation programme, the committee held a rally at Muktangan Djala where its member secretary Anu Muhammad spoke.
   The leaders and activists marched towards the energy ministry, but the police stopped them at Zero Point.
   Committee leaders Mujahidul Islam Selim, Tipu Biswas, Nurul Hasan, Abdullah Sarkar, Akmal Hossain, MM Akash and others spoke at the rally.
   The leaders called on the people to stand united against any attempt of the plunder of national wealth.

The repression on women and children (prevention) tribunal in Patuakhali ordered that a non-bailable warrant of arrest should be issued for Abdur Rab Howladar, president of the district Jatiyatabadi Krishak Dal.
   The warrant was issued after Khadija Akter, third wife of Abdur Rab, lodged a case with the tribunal on September 21, 2006 against her husband, his second wife Jharna Begum, and step sons of first wife Jiban and Suman, on charge of torturing her for dowry.
   The judge on October 18 ordered that arrest warrants should be issued against all the accused after police investigation.

The Election Commission on Thursday issued work order to 30 firms for printing the voters’ list, a task considered by the EC as the most important one at the moment in the lead-up to the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
   ‘The work order (for printing the voters’ list) has been issued to 30 organisations and another eight organisations will be chosen soon based on point system,’ secretary to the EC secretariat, Abdur Rashid
   Sarker, told the news agency Thursday evening.
   He said the work order had already been faxed to the deputy commissioners concerned. After the signing of the agreement, the printing of electoral roll would begin.
   Earlier, in response to the invitation of tender, some 185 printers submitted quotations for the printing of the voters’ list. This time around, the voters’ list will not be printed centrally — the task will be divided into 38 zones.
   Although in the invitation of tender it was stated that the bidders would be allowed 45 days to complete the task, the EC hoped that they would be able to get the job done within a month.
   Earlier in the afternoon, the EC secretary told reporters at his office that the tender committee had already completed scrutinising 31 organisations that would be given the job. The scrutiny of the remaining 7 organisations was scheduled to be finished by Thursday, he added.
   Asked if the EC would be able to have the printed voters’ list in place before declaration of the election schedule, he said there was no relation between the declaration of the election schedule and printing the voters’ list.
   ‘We already have a voters’ list,’ Sarker said, adding that there was no problem if the voters’
   list was printed two days
   after the declaration of the poll schedule.
   Asked if any candidate wants the voters’ list, he said if any candidate wanted to see the list he or she could see it at the commission offices.
   ‘If the letter (of work order) can be issued today, the printed voters’ list will be available till November 30.’
   Responding to a suggestion that the printing of the list might be completed by middle of December, Sarker said, ‘Question does not arise — it will be done within November.’
   He said that prior to the declaration of the election schedule, the commission was doing the spadework, and after the schedule declaration, the EC would begin the task of election campaign, including motivating people for voting.

An additional metropolitan sessions judge of Dhaka on Thursday summoned the investigation officer of the gold smuggling case filed against former president HM Ershad to appear in court on November 9.
   The judge, SM Majibur Rahman, issued the order against MJ Mostafa, assistant police superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department, after recording the deposition of two more witnesses. Six gave their deposition.
   The police submitted a supplementary charge sheet against Ershad and charged him with smuggling 3,000 gold bars from Zia International Airport on July 17, 1990. Nine people were made prosecution witnesses.
   The judge on Thursday recorded the statement of former civil aviation and tourism secretary Mohamamd Ali and CID inspector Mohammad Ali Haider. The Jatiya Party chairman, Ershad, was present in the court.
   ‘I knew two foreign citizens were arrested in possession of the smuggled gold and former airport chairman, Maynul Islam, directed investigation of the scam. Airport manager Ashraf Uddin Sekendar was found guilty of helping the smugglers,’ Mohammad Ali told the court.

The visiting UNDP election adviser, Peter David Eicher, on Thursday met the LGRD and cooperatives minister, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, here on Thursday and discussed the election process in the country and other matters of mutual interest.
   During the meeting, the minister said UNDP was one of the development partners of Bangladesh and the UN development agency has cooperated with Bangladesh in various development activities, including holding ‘free and fair elections’.
   Bhuiyan, also secretary general of the ruling BNP, hoped that the United Nations Development Programme would also help in formulating voter-ID card in future.
   The BNP secretary general has been engrossed in dealing with critical
   election issues with his opposition Awami League counterpart, trying to resolve a serious standoff on the question of electoral reforms.
   The UN resident coordinator and UNDP representative, Renata Lok Dessallian and the UNDP director, Najibur Rahman, were present at the meeting.

People across the country have been suffering continuously due to severe power outages with the generation of electricity hovering around an awful 3,000 megawatts.
   Sources in the Power Development Board said generation during peak evening hours on Thursday was recorded at about 3,098MW against the demand for about 5,000MW.
   Dhaka received a supply of 1,300MW during peak evening hours against the demand for 1,800MW causing outages in areas such as Mirpur, Pallabi, Kazipara, Shewrapara, Demra, Islambagh, Kotwali, Lalbagh, Mohammadpur, Tejgaon and Basabo.
   City dwellers had to go through frequent outages on Thursday. Severe power outages also hampered production in mills and factories. Power officials said the situation would not improve soon as 18 power units had been out of order because of repair or overhaul.

The ruling BNP’s youth wing, Juba Dal, has declared telecoms minister Aminul Haque persona non grata in Tanore and Godagari upazilas.
   Jubo Dal leaders of the two upazilas, and Mondumala and Kakanhat municipalities made this announcement at a protest rally at Tanore Dakbanglow playground Thursday evening.
   Tanore thana Juba Dal president Emran Ali Molla, who is also municipality chairman, said, ‘We feel ashamed of and embarrassed for corruption of the minister and his aides.’
   He demanded that BNP choose an alternative candidate for Rajshahi-1 (Tanore-Godagari) constituency to replace Amniul Haque for the upcoming general election.
   Tanore Krishak Dal president Biswanath Sarker, Juba Dal leaders Hazrat Ali, Habibur Rahman Hasibul and Omer Ali also spoke.

The finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman has said giving goats to old women or micro-credit programme would not ensure the country’s development, as he believes that real progress depends on large-scale industrialisation and modern agriculture.
   ‘Giving mobile phones to beggars won’t bring progress to a nation,’ he said on Thursday.
   While congratulating professor Muhammad Yunus for his Nobel Peace accolade, Saifur expressed his reservation about Yunus’s micro-credit schemes and his latest desire of floating a new political party.
   He also did not subscribe to the widely-held claim that microfinance helped many people to come out of poverty trap and made them self-reliant. If it was so, the country would have no poverty since the present BNP government distributed much bigger amount of micro-credit than that of the Grameen Bank, he said at the inauguration ceremony of the Moulvibazar branch of Dutch Bangla Bank Ltd.
   Saifur said great leaders like Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman had led and formed political parties and their parties enjoyed state power, but all the problems of country’s people had not been solved.
   Besides, many other political parties including JSD and left parties are doing politics and they are very much in touch with the people, but they could not yet make their way to power. ‘In this stage, how Dr Yunus will run a fresh political party? If he does so, then the role of our civil society will vanish,’ Saifur said, stressing that someone or some group should be there to keep watch on political parties, which have become very rough in our country.
   The minister also recalled the agitation and criticism faced by the Grameen Bank in Sylhet during the previous term of the BNP government, and how he personally handled the situation.

Former BNP MP major (retd) Akhtaruzzaman on Thursday appealed to the ‘patriotic forces’ to take over for a year suspending the constitution immediately after the handover of power by political forces.
   ‘If the patriotic forces take over charge of the country with the handing over of power by political forces and suspend the constitution for one year, it seems the majority people of the country would extend their unstinted support,’ he said in a press statement.
   Major Akhtar, expelled from the BNP, came up with the plea in the wake of a prolonged political impasse over the election issues, which
   could not yet be resolved through dialogue although the present government’s time in power is running out fast.
   He, however, said such arrangement should not be a prolonged one as the people do not expect the patriotic forces to get involved in politics.
   He also observed that the president could show a ray of hope at this critical juncture of the nation, as he is a teacher as well as the commander- in-chief.