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The government is planning to monitor and coordinate the tapping of telephone calls through a national monitoring centre under the home ministry, according to report front-paged in New Age on Wednesday. The monitoring centre will reportedly be made up of representatives from the law enforcement and intelligence agencies and a brigadier general of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence will head the centre. However, phone tapping by the state, that too at a time when a writ petition challenging the government’s authority to do phone tapping is pending with the High Court, is not only unacceptable but is a direct affront to the rule of law and the fundamental rights of the citizens of this country.
   The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government wanted to introduce phone tapping during its tenure, apparently for the sake of national security and to make it easier for the law enforcement agencies to identify and apprehend criminals. In order to allow the government to do this, parliament passed the Telecommunications (Amendment) Act 2006 in February 2006. In May of that same year, a write petition was filed challenging the law and on May 18, 2006, a High Court bench issued a rule on the government to explain why the amended Telecommunications Act should not be declared illegal. No further progress was made before the BNP-led alliance government left office at the end of its tenure. When emergency was declared in January, 2007, it automatically took away the court’s right to give judgement on a case brought against a political government. Hence, the case has been shelved since.
   Now, the military-controlled interim government is trying to pick up where the BNP-led government left off, attempting once again to introduce phone tapping in the name of maintaining public safety and national security. However, we have witnessed time and time again the tendency of governments – particularly unelected, undemocratic governments – to confuse the safety and security of the people with the security of the government itself. As a result, governments introduce repressive measures, such as phone tapping, which directly infringe upon the rights of the citizens instead of making them any safer. Phone tapping by the state is a direct contravention of Article 43 (b) of our constitution that guarantees a person’s right to the privacy of his correspondence and other means of communications. It infringes also the constitutionally granted freedom of thought and conscience, and of speech. It is it intrusive, intimidating and unconstitutional; and is yet another significant step towards our nation becoming a police state.
   Hence, we believe that it is our responsibility to continue to oppose any plans or efforts by this government, or any government for that matter, to engage in phone tapping. Constitutionality aside, we do not believe that public safety can be enhanced by taking hostage the civil liberties of the citizens. The potential for abuse of such measures far outweighs, in our view, any real benefit to society. Hence, we urge the military-controlled regime to abandon such plans and to return to the people their fundamental rights. Side by side, we feel that the High Court has a responsibility to step in now, on its own, to block the government’s infringement of the people’s fundamental rights, in the least, while the matter is still pending with the courts.

Punish errant principals, teachers

The non-government teachers and employees of post-primary and post-graduate educational institutions, since July 2006, have been receiving 100 per cent of their basic salary from the government. The decision was implemented in the face of agitation and strikes called by more than five lakh teachers of about 30,000 institutions demanding pay hike and other facilities. The government now spends about Tk 3,357 crore a year for the purpose.
   From a New Age report of August 23, it is learnt that though these teachers are provided with full government benefits, a number of headmasters, principals and teachers of these schools allegedly withdraw large amounts from the institution funds in the name of medical allowance, house rent and other benefits. As disclosed by a joint secretary to the education ministry, some principals and headmasters are said to have withdrawn more than Tk 50,000 a month in medical allowance and house rent in addition to their basic salary.
   Any government committed to development needs to prioritise mass education and the nation cannot expect quality education without quality teachers. Also, quality teachers need to be properly remunerated. While even in the neighbouring countries, a career in teaching is made attractive by government through increased remuneration and benefits, in Bangladesh teachers’ salaries and benefits remain pitiful.
   Hence, it is important that the government provides increased salaries and benefits to teachers of government and non-formal schools. At the same time, however, it must ensure that principals and teachers are not able to engage in corruption and take undue advantage of facilities provided to them. The drawing of large amounts of money from school funds by principals and teachers is tantamount to stealing, and those who have engaged in such criminal activity must be identified and taken to task. Although the government claims that education receives the highest budgetary allocation, its responsibility does not end with merely providing funds. It is as important to ensure proper and equitable distribution of funds. And while doing so the government needs to remain vigilant and strengthen its monitoring activities so that anyone trying to take undue advantage of any facilities is identified and dealt with.
   The incumbent military-controlled interim government reportedly intends to put a stop to this practice of teachers and principals drawing money from school funds. This is a step in the right direction. An immediate and thorough investigation of the allegations against the section of teachers enjoying undue privileges is in order. And those found responsible need to be strictly dealt with. However, unless and until government monitoring is improved and accountability of teachers is ensured, irregularities and corruption will not be rooted from the education sector. At the same time, we hope that the government will give proper incentives to teachers to attract more high-quality candidates to this noble profession.

Despite all their drawbacks and shortcomings, despite their petty squabbles spilling into the streets taking the shape of pitched battles, successive political regimes had succeeded in reducing poverty incidence substantially from 56.6 per cent in 1991 to 48.9 per cent in 2000. Subsequently, and despite the ruling government’s all pervading, unhindered corruption, despite the strings of blockades and shutdowns, poverty incidence decreased from 48.9 per cent to 40 per cent in 2005. This was perhaps the fastest pace of poverty reduction, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics information, in the history of Bangladesh.
   However, inequality, the people’s share in national income to be precise, worsened during every government. gradually but surely marginalising the poor into destitution, and the destitute into destruction. Perhaps the only time that the share of the poorest people in Bangladesh, the poorest quintile of the populace, was between 1995 and 2000, presumably because of an added and renewed vigour on agriculture and attainment of food sufficiency.
   The year 2005 also marked a departure in terms of the guiding document of the country’s development plan known as the Five Year Plan, in which there was reasonably less involvement of the international financial institutions, at least in theory. Although the process of finalising a Poverty Reduction Strategy Plan, which the World Bank prescribed to its borrowers as a precondition for loans, had begun at least a year before then, the plan was officially launched in 2005. This document, supposedly a three year rolling plan titled ‘Unlocking the Potential’, envisioned swift poverty reduction and development. In doing so there, this instrument suggested a number of strategies and paths either to reach those goals or to provide for others so they might reach their goals.
   Since the beginning of this implementation period poverty incidence, food security, unemployment, investment and presumably disparity have worsened substantially. Some estimates, particularly one done by the Centre for Policy Dialogue, puts poverty at 48.5 per cent in March 2008. It means that poverty has actually reverted to level documented eight years ago. The current military-controlled interim government’s ineptitude and failure to shore up the economy or encourage private investment, both local and foreign, has certainly contributed to this downturn. But at the same time this downturn also proves that the first poverty reduction strategy, authored by the current adviser for commerce Hossain Zillur Rahman, has failed. It has failed to generate resilience among or create the kind of social security needed to protect the poor and the marginalised sections of people.
   But that is hardly surprising since the poverty reduction strategy’s recommendations, as do those of other countries, conforms to the edicts of the free market and the private sector — that the international financial institutions champion across the globe — gradually narrowing and minimising the role of the state. It is because the lending agencies did not merely set a precondition of formulating a poverty reduction plan but also provided specific guidelines regarding how this document should be written and what strategies recommended to reduce poverty. That the World Bank’s recommendations would fail to bring about, what it likes to call ‘pro poor economic growth’ is hardly surprising. Consequently, the poverty reduction strategy as a whole was doomed to fail too. It was merely a matter of time. The military-controlled government’s actions and inaction could be said to have acted as a catalyst in that regard.
   It would be very surprising, however, if the lender driven poverty strategy actually succeeded in achieving sustainable poverty reduction and equitable growth of the economy. It would be surprising because the recommendations would assuredly hinge upon the premise that the neo-liberal paradigm, the open market and primacy of the private sector could cure all ills of the economy and lead to growth. The framework would necessarily conform to what has come to be known as the Washington Consensus. The poverty reduction strategy would then be likely to lose sight of its overarching goal, which should be to attain more equitable distribution of resources and greater public welfare.
   There is then much reason to be concerned when a second poverty reduction strategy is being put up for the National Economic Council for approval and subsequent implementation. Not that the first one adhered to all the procedural stipulations of the lending agencies. There had hardly been consultations with the people in such manner that those discussions could give a realistic indication of the aspirations and desires of the people at large since it did not include all the sections of the people. On the other hand, it was never put before the parliament for discussion among the elected public representatives of the day. There is even less reason to believe, given the authoritarian nature of the incumbent regime, that the one up for approval had gone through a more participatory, inclusive and transparent process during its formulation.
   While there are numerous reasons to doubt the efficacy of the new strategy plan besides being apprehensive regarding the measures it might recommend, this discussion will limit itself to just a few. In keeping with the direction set out by the first poverty reduction strategy, the second is also likely to advocate such measures as encouraging foreign direct investment, increased social safety net, diversification into value added agricultural produce and gradual deregulation of the economy besides, of course, gradual withdrawal of the state from delivering essential services to the people. Any measure or initiative attempting to reduce poverty must primarily aspire to reduce disparity and inequity among the people instead of considering poverty solely through its incidence as percentages of the entire population.
   In order illustrate the futility of overwhelmingly market based solutions that the strategy is wont to recommend, it is important to consider the case of the poorest and most marginalised groups of people. Despite the steady economic growth in Bangladesh, reports indicate that there are between 20 and 30 million, almost a fifth of the population that suffer from severe and chronic poverty for long stretches every year. Besides those affected by monga, a famine like situation arising out of absence of agricultural employment, in the northern districts, there are also the residents of shoals and remote hilly areas. Chronic poverty is also visible among certain sections of ethnic minorities. Studies show that the proportion of ultra poor (1600 kilo calories per day) and extreme poor (1800 kilo calories per day) is higher for women headed households than those headed by men. Studies also show that a substantial portion of the hardcore poor are actually women.
   One of the main reasons that these excluded and marginalised people suffer from chronic poverty and hunger is their remoteness. Presuming a bias for the private sector, with however much competition, the strategy would likely propose to invest on infrastructure, encourage investment and create employment opportunities. As a stop gap there would be suggestions to increase the farcical social security net and distribution of a few more vulnerable group feeding cards. Given that successive governments have failed to encourage private investment in reasonably accessible areas in the northern districts with directed and specific incentives, it is highly unlikely that such recommendations would be followed up and effectively implemented triggering an immediate change of the poverty scenario.
   The social safety net programmes on the other hand do not add to the resilience of the marginalised groups. Neither do they provide them with sufficient resources so as to lift them up. Nor does the safety net programme include services that might prove to be much more valuable to the poorer sections rather than a paltry sum of money. What this safety net programme does, however, is to ensure that the poorer sections become even more dependent on handouts and alms of the government, providing the government a rationale to run these programmes for years on end. It is merely a matter of fact that the private sector driven free market will only go as far as it gets acceptable returns on investment.
   It is in such cases that the state must play a role to provide the initial ‘push’ and get the proverbial wheel rolling. In order to ensure that these marginalised sections attain gradually higher standards of living and lead better lives, these sections must be provided with the tools to do so. In order to secure better employment, better healthcare and education must be ensured, and given that they are below the poverty line as it is, the state must take the responsibility to provide it in such manner that it is easily accessible to such groups.
   It has been found in a number of East Asian countries, that have gone on to become economic giants, that there was a sustained stress on heavy investment by the government or that the people were culturally more prone to spend substantially on education from long before they experience economic boom, quite obviously benefiting from a skilled and educated workforce. But the full extent of social and individual returns from education can only become evident in much longer terms, seven and ten years. Increased investment in health services also take a long time to bear fruit, as was the case with Cuba when it increased health spending even in the middle of a serious economic crisis soon after the fall of the former Soviet Union in the 1990’s.
   A three year plan, that the World Bank prescribed strategy plan happens to be — similar to programme periods of the lending agencies themselves — it would fail to assess, ascertain or comprehend the importance and full extent of returns of investment made in the social sectors and other essential utilities because of its myopic nature, as do the international financial institutions themselves. It is therefore of little surprise that a prescribed package of measures has failed to provide the people of the country with the current and at the same time rendered state owned institutions so dysfunctional that they can hardly intervene effectively.
   Another point that must be remembered is the fallacy of ownership since these documents are ‘home grown’, that the PRSP is touted to be, as it was written and formulated by national consultants instead of foreign ones. Whether Bangladeshi or foreign, home ownership does not merely depend on the citizenship or nationality of the author but more on whether the document adequately reflects and strives towards the genuine desires of the people, whether the measures indicate that they were pragmatically developed through an organic and independent process rather than a prescribed process and conformity to a certain school of thought imposed upon — or perhaps embraced by — the authors of the plan.
   It is time that Bangladesh stops being subservient to certain quarters’ whims and desires and compromising genuine public interest. The incumbents should launch a thorough exercise, gathering representative public opinion towards a more participatory and inclusive longer term plan for equitable and wholesome development.