Of good governance, of caring government

That no one in any responsible position is willing to talk to the students is not only regrettable but clearly militates against the principle of good administration. It should have been for the minister of education to engage the protesting students in a meaningful dialogue on the issue. As we speak, that has sadly not happened. What has happened is for the prime minister to dismiss the questions raised by the students. That is unfortunate.
And then there are the teachers at public universities. They have been in agitation mode over the Prottoy scheme. The finance minister has condemned their protests as irresponsible. That is not how a government which prides itself on being an elected entity operates.
The issue here is not one of whether or not the teachers and also the students are correct in their approach to the issues they have raised. It is one of governance. It is one of our ministers calling forth the wisdom to meet these protesters, hear them out and so inform the country that the government is not detached from citizens’ concerns, reports DT.
And now take yet one more look at the corruption swirling all over and around the country on the matter of the powerful and influential purloining the resources of the state to fatten their bank accounts. Former police officers, NBR officials, and now the spouse of a former BIWTA chief are in the limelight not because of yeomen’s services they have rendered the country but because of the robbery they have resorted to. There is the driver, employed at the Public Service Commission, whose thievery leaves us stunned.
And yet no one in government has said a word to reassure citizens that measures are in place to punish those who in government service so easily turned into robbers and so left the country in a pitiable condition. Some of these robbers have made their way out of the country; some others may yet have squirrelled themselves away in their dens. And what have the authorities done? They have taken recourse to the process of dismissals and transfers and suspensions as a way of punishing these brigands.
But that is not punishment. It is simply informing these thieves that while they have been caught stealing, they should not go on doing it anymore, that indeed they should turn into better people. So here we are. The resources of the state are gone, into the hands of these people, and will not return to citizens. Their homes and resorts and parks are impounded by the authorities. And where are the “owners” of all this affluence? Not one of them is in prison. Not one of them has a warrant out for his arrest. No one in government has taken any step to have those who have been given safe passage out of the country be brought back to Bangladesh.
Every day, citizens wake up to reports of men in powerful positions having financially fleeced the state. It all raises the question: How many more people are there in government whose malfeasance will be exposed in the days ahead? And once that is exposed, as the criminality of those the nation has seen exposed, what steps will legally be taken for them to be prosecuted, brought to trial, and convicted? Nothing of that sort is yet there. When a government remains silent over the criminal acts of officials who have served under it, questions are raised anew about the integrity of those who wield political authority.
And that is a terrible situation for a nation to be in. By now there should have been a meaningful debate in the Jatiya Sangsad about the corruption stories which have recently been flung our way. That has not happened. The home minister has not informed the country, either through a press conference or on the floor of parliament, what his department means to do about reassuring the nation that corrective steps are being taken, that the guilty will be produced in court and that the people of Bangladesh will have the privilege of witnessing these corrupt elements put through the grinder of a trial open to the public.
Governance is never about denial. It is not about deflecting questions about the present to criticism of political parties which went out of power nearly two decades ago. It is not about ministers informing the country that the police and NBR men who have scampered off with the resources of the state were not members of the ruling party. Of course they were not, but then these men served in a government administered by a party which enjoys a majority in parliament. That is the fundamental truth. Why try making light of the scandal by bringing in extraneous or pointless issues here?
Governance is about responsible and responsive government. It is not about taxing citizens but about steps that will reduce taxes for them. It is not about condemning the young for their protests on the streets but certainly about hearing them out. It is about showing respect to angry teachers by inviting them to negotiations on their problems.
It is not about helping the powerful corrupt out of the country and then pretending that all is well with the country. Governance does not make a laughing stock of administration. It is not about the Anti-Corruption Commission asking law enforcers to prevent those accused of commandeering state resources from leaving the country after the guilty have made their way out of the country.
Government is a thriving, throbbing affair. But it loses its shine when citizens observe banks collapsing around them, when the powerful flee the country with wads of money not theirs, when those in authority know what ugly acts people in service under them are indulging in and yet look away, when the pretence of everything being normal in the country becomes the response to crises which otherwise call for firm tackling.
Good governance ensures, through listening to the voices of protest, to dissent, that the streets remain peaceful, that teachers are in the classroom, that citizens come to believe that their leaders speak for them and not for the corrupt or syndicates or robber barons who have been turning the country into their fiefdoms.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Consultant Editor, Dhaka Tribune.