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Economists, former bureaucrats and business leaders, at a seminar on Wednesday, called for phasing out foreign aid to get rid of the unwanted conditions and prescriptions by lenders and to achieve independent national development.
   Most of the loans are mired in conditionalities, which are traps more often than not, said the findings of a study presented there. It found the World Bank, which provided 30 per cent of the loans that Bangladesh got, to be the largest lender, but said its aid effectiveness was lower in comparison with other donors like the Asian Development Bank.
   The study on aid effectiveness of multilateral organisations observed that while stakeholders’ perceptions stressed government ownership, the lending agencies failed to deliver the national agenda. Bangladesh had received $1.38 billion of loan each year for three years.
   ‘We do not want to burden our economy with such loans,’ said Professor Abu Ahmed, a teacher of Dhaka University, at the seminar on ‘Stakeholders’ Perceptions on the Aid Effectiveness of Multilateral Organisations’, organised by Unnayan Onneshan at CIRDAP auditorium.
   He also pointed out that the lenders never suggested accumulation of capital required for national development works through the share market and their consultants had not been able to help improve the condition of ailing organisations such as Agrani Bank.
   Shahidul Haq, a former director of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, insisted that the donors should not be allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of the country and should stop making sweeping remarks about the nation’s institutions and politicians.
   The official development assistance contributed 2.3 per cent of Bangladesh’s gross national income in the last three years, and declining trends in assistance were witnessed, said the findings of the study on the Bangladesh perspective, explained by M Iqbal Ahmed, a research associate at Unnayan Onneshan.
   The study’s respondents were business leaders, representatives of the civil society, former ministers, members of parliament and civil servants.
   Simon Burall of the Overseas Development Institute of the UK presented the study’s overall report on aid effectiveness, covering five other countries in Asia and Africa — Ghana, India, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. The study was aimed at examining perceptions of performance against the indicators of the Paris Declaration, especially government ownership, alignment and harmonisation.
   The research director of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Quazi Shahabuddin, said the potential benefits of external assistance had not been realised, and blamed both lenders’ conditionalities and poor governance for the failure.
   Abdus Shahid, a former opposition chief whip of the Jatiya Sangsad, mentioned the inordinate delay in disbursing aid pledged by an overseas donor and quoted a minister who said, ‘It may take 20-25 years to get the aid disbursed.’
   Former commerce secretary Suhel Ahmed, referring to his experience while serving the government, said the World Bank appeared more concerned about bureaucratic exercise in approving the assistance required for post-flood rehabilitation programme.
   He, however, lauded organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme for showing flexibility in loan disbursement in time or in emergencies.
   Hafizuddin Khan, a former adviser to the caretaker government, also narrated his experience while working for the World Bank, saying that the lending agency had intervened too much in his work, to the extent of creating hatred and violating ethics.
   ‘I also wondered [while working with some WB consultants] how come they are advisers when they are almost ignorant about how the government functions,’ he said.
   Shahabuddin maintained that the aid agencies should allow the recipient countries to utilise the aid by designing projects based on social institutions.
   ‘It requires a strong urge to shift the whole aid paradigm. Policy space and national priorities should also be there in providing aid,’ said the chairman of the Unnayan Onneshan, Rashed Mahmud, underlining the need for ensuring public accountability in receiving and using assistance.
   The secretary of the Economic Relations Division, Aminul Islam Bhuiyan, while speaking as chief guest said that Bangladesh had received mostly soft loans from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank.
   Appreciating the issues brought up in the discussion, he, however, maintained that the government had to strike a balance in the conflicts between power structures — parliamentarians, bureaucrats, businesspeople, civil society and the media — while setting development priorities and formulating policies.

Global climate change might directly put an adverse impact on the country’s fisheries and aquaculture sector, affecting the stock and supply of fishes as well as damaging their habitat and ecosystem, fisheries experts said on Wednesday.
   The experts made the observations at the inaugural session of a two-day 3rd biennial fisheries conference and research fair 2008. Bangladesh Fisheries Research Forum organised the conference at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council in Dhaka.
   Syed Ataur Rahman, former director general of the fisheries department, attended the programme as chief guest while Dr MA Mazid, director general of the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute, and Mokammel Hossain, director general of the fisheries department, as special guests.
   Professor M Aminul Islam of Bangladesh Agricultural University presented a keynote paper at the inaugural session chaired by Professor Abdul Wahab.
   The fisheries experts highlighted the need for formulating the policies and strategies for the fisheries sub-sector to cope with the climate change and face the future challenges of protein deficiency, employment generation, poverty reduction and foreign exchange earnings.
   They pointed out that temperature rise in sea surface and inland water, sea level rise, floods, droughts, increase in frequency and intensity of tornados and cyclones, increase in greenhouse gases, acid rain, changes in precipitation and water availability were the main reasons for climate change.
   Some direct consequences of the climate change were coral bleaching and damage to reef ecosystem, shifts in distribution of marine fish stock, reduction of wild fish stock by deteriorating water quality, worsening dry season mortality, bringing in new predators and pathogens, change in food abundance in inland capture fisheries.
   Professor Aminul Islam in his keynote paper said, ‘The climate change causes a loss of human lives, agricultural crops and aquatic lives, aquaculture stock and livestock and damage to aquaculture facilities and fishing gears.’
   Fish contributes about 63 per cent to animal protein intake and about 1.4 million people are directly involved with this sub-sector while about 12 million people are indirectly involved with fisheries related activities.

The interim administration has revived a move for constructing apartments in partnership with private entrepreneurs on abandoned government lands to overcome the mounting housing crisis of its employees.
   It believes that implementation of such projects in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country will also help save the abandoned lands from illegal occupation, said an official.
   The housing and public works ministry has already prepared a draft guideline for construction of these flats.
   The guideline, styled the ‘Partnership-basis flat construction on government lands guidelines 2008’, is expected to be placed before the council of advisers shortly for its approval. ‘The draft guideline is expected to be placed at the cabinet meeting on Sunday for final approval,’ said a senior official of the public works ministry.
   An inter-ministry meeting, attended by representatives from the law and finance ministries and the planning divisions, along with others, finalised the draft on December 11, 2007.
   The proposal was approved in principle earlier in 1999.
   According to the guideline, the government’s shares of the apartments to be constructed by the private companies will be allotted to the aspirants among the public servants on hire-purchase basis. They will be given the flats on a 99-year lease term, says the draft.
   The draft was earlier sent to the law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry for scrutiny.
   But the law ministry said that the guidelines did not essentially require its vetting since they are not treated as legal documents and the executive ministry could decide on the issue, adding that the case-to-case contracts in future could be vetted by the law ministry to avoid any complications.
   The development projects will be approved by the inter-ministry steering committee led by the public works secretary, and the government will have no monetary involvement in them. The government-appointed real estate development companies will have to get the buildings’ designs approved by the Directorate of Architecture.

The Khulna speedy trial tribunal on Wednesday framed charges in the case of the murder of Manik Chandra Saha, senior staff correspondent of New Age, killed on January 15, 2004.
   The next hearing in the case has been posted for January 22.
   The tribunal judge, Abdus Salam Shikdar, on Wednesday framed charges against Hai Islam alias Kochi, named in the supplementary charge sheet filed by Detective Branch inspector Chittaranjan Pal on December 2, 2007.
   The total number of people charged with killing in the case is now 13. Three of the 13 accused were earlier killed in ‘crossfire’ with lawmen.
   The same court earlier framed charges against 12 people named on the first charge sheet, filed with the court on June 20, 2004 by then Khulna police officer-in-charge Md Mosharraf Hossain.
   The charge sheet named Sumon alias Nuruzzaman, Ali Akbar alias Shaon, Akram Hawlader alias ‘Bomber’ Akram, Bulbul Hossain alias Bulu, Abdus Sattar alias ‘Disco’ Sattar, Shawkat Hossain, Altaf Hosain alias ‘BDR’ Altaf, Mahfuz alias Mofizul, Bellal Hossain, Sarwar Hossain, Kochi alias Omar Farukh and Mitul as being involved.
   Of the accused, Sumon, Altaf Hossain and Mahfuz were killed in ‘crossfire.’
   The police could arrest Ali Akbar, Akram Hawlader and Bulbul Hossain. The rest are in hiding.
   The speedy trial tribunal judge on April 11, 2005 ordered further investigation of the case after recording
   the depositions of 24 witn- esses between January 4 and April 7, 2005, the court sources said.
   Md Iqbal, then officer-in-charge of the Khulna police, took up the case for the further investigation and Md Abdul Hamid, who succeeded Iqbal as the officer-in-charge, on December 14, 2005, took up the case as investigation officer, said the police.
   The case was handed over to the Detective Branch on November 11, 2006 and DB inspector Chittaranjan Pal was made the investigation officer.
   A former president of the Khulna Press Club and the Khulna Union of Journalists, Manik, also a stringer of the BBC Bangla service, was bombed to death at Chhota Mirzapur near the press club on his way to his house on Ahsan Ahmed Road in the city.

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, has told the Philippines ambassador that his caretaker government is carrying out whatever necessary for holding free, fair and acceptable election following the roadmap of the Election Commission.
   He made the remark when the outgoing Philippines ambassador in Dhaka, Norbetro R Basilio, appreciated the chief adviser’s recent address to the nation.
   The ambassador, who made a farewell call on the chief adviser at his office on Wednesday, said he believed that credible election would be held in Bangladesh, which was reiterated by the chief adviser in his speech.
   Fakhruddin said the government was carrying out measures including reforms — a demand by all — to create level playing field.
   The international community has support to the roadmap of Bangladesh’s election and is helping to this end, he said.
   The chief adviser hoped that Bangladesh would get support of the Philippines in becoming Dialogue Partner of the Association of South-East Asian Nations.
   He thanked the government of Philippines and its people for their active support towards Bangladesh’s membership in the ASEAN Regional Forum.
   Bangladesh became a full participant of the ARF in its 13th ministerial meeting held in July 2006 in Malaysia, according to an official.
   During the meeting, trade, commerce and prospect in various potential areas also featured.
   Referring to the Philippines’s well-developed aquaculture, the chief adviser sought Manila’s cooperation in the development of aquaculture in Bangladesh.
   The ambassador appreciated the Bangladesh’s pharmaceutical industry and their good quality medicines at competitive cost.
   Agreeing with him, the chief adviser said Bangladesh pharmaceuticals manufacture high quality and international standard medicines and the country is trying to further expand and develop this promising sector.
   He said the Philippines can import medicines from Bangladesh in a bigger way.

The fifth anniversary of the death of Tebhaga movement leader Amal Sen, also a former president of the Workers Party of Bangladesh, will be observed today.
   The party and its fronts and the Comrade Amal Sen Smriti Rakkha Committee have chalked up elaborate programmes to mark the occasion.
   The party and its front organisations placed flowers on the portrait of Amal Sen in its central office on Wednesday.
   The leaders of the Worker Party, Awami League, Communist Party of Bangladesh, Jatya Samajtantrik Dal, Samyabadi Dal, Ganatantri Party, Gana Forum, Communist Kendra, NAP, and Ganatantri Majdur Party attended a meeting in the central Workers Party office on Wednesday to draw up programmes.
   Today’s programmes include a drawing competition, holding a blood donation camp at Bakri in Narail, placing flowers at the place of cremation of Amal Sen, and holding a discussion meeting and a cultural programme.
   Amal Sen was born in 1912 at Afra in Narail. He was one of the organisers of the Tebhaga movement in 1946. He had been in jail for many years as he was an exponent of the progressive movement during the Pakistan era.
   He was elected president to the Workers Party for two terms. He died on January 17, 2002.

At least 30 turtles were found dead along the coast of the Bay of Bengal at Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar during the past three days till Wednesday.
   Environmentalists suspected that the turtles, known as Olive Reedley and each weighing between 30 kilograms and 40 kilograms, might have been killed by fishermen, foxes and dogs at Shilkhali, Monkhali, Baharchhara seacoast in Teknaf.
   ‘This is the peak time for breeding of turtles and some of the turtles might have come under attack of dogs and foxes when they were returning to the sea after breeding,’ Mohamman Hanan, biodiversity officer of ecological critical area management project, Cox’s Bazar said.
   Some of the turtles might have been killed by fishermen, who fish along the coast, he added, saying that Olive Reedley turtles come to the Cox’s Bazar coast from the deep sea for breeding.
   AKM Rafiqul Islam, ecological critical area management officer under the Directorate of Environment, Cox’s Bazar, said he had visited Tekna on January 14 on information of the turtles’ death and found some dead turtle there.
   A good number of Olive Reedley turtles are killed on the Cox’s Bazar seacoast ever year.

Election commissioner Muhammed Sohul Hussain on Wednesday said the Election Commission might find itself in a legal tangle if it did not go for delimiting the electoral areas as it was the commission’s constitutional duty.
   ‘The Election Commission must do it according to the constitution and laws. Otherwise, show-cause notices may be issued or cases may be filed against the commission’, Sohul told reporters at his office.
   He said that the EC was bound to redraw the electoral areas. If it is not done after the publication of the census report, the EC will have to be accountable, he added.
   Asked about the political parties’ opposition to delimitation of the constituencies, the commissioner said, ‘I cannot understand why the political parties are opposing it. It has been stated in the election roadmap and it will not delay the elections.’
   The EC on July 15 last year announced its election roadmap in which it was said that the delimitation would start January this year. No political party opposed the plan during the EC-sponsored dialogues on electoral reforms held between September and November last year.

A Bogra court on Wednesday rejected the bail prayer of Asadullah al-Ghalib, the chief of the Ahle Hadith Movement Bangladesh, charged with offences in a case of bombing and explosive substance recovery.
   The court posted for March 16 the next proceedings in the case as witnesses were not present in the court.
   Al-Ghalib, also a former chairman of the Arabic department at Rajshahi Universitty, and three others, Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh activist Shafiqullah, Jainul Serker and his wife, Manwara Begum, were produced in the court of additional district judge in the morning.
   Al-Ghalib’s lawyers, AHM Golam Robbani Khan and Sirajul Islam, prayed for the bail, but the judge, Mirza Ayub, rejected the prayer.

A police officer was suspended and another closed at Monpura upazila in Bhola Tuesday on bribery charges.
   Earlier on Sunday, a police official was suspended at Bauphal upazila in Patuakhali for misuse of power, according to sources in the DIG’s office in Barisal.
   Police super of Bhola GM Azizur Rahman visited Monpura on Tuesday and ordered to suspend Rafiqul Islam, sub-inspector of the Monpura police station, and close the officer-in-charge, Badal Karmakar, to Bhola police line. Rafiqul was arrested Monday on bribery charges.
   Besides, Mizanur Rahman, officer-in-charge of the Bauphal police station, was suspended for harassing the people by misusing power. Earlier he was closed to Chittagong police line on December 31, 2007.

Fazle Kabir, director general of the Planning and Development Academy, has been transferred to the Finance Division as additional secretary.
   Officer on special duty (joint secretary) Abdur Rouf Chowdhury has been posted as director to the primary education directorate and Md Ataul Haque, deputy secretary of the textiles and jute ministry, has been sent to the NGO Affairs Bureau as director.
   The establishment ministry issued a gazette notification to this effect on Wednesday.