DHAKA THIS WEEK

Mahbub Husain Khan

This week was taken up with the activities of the political leaders going about reforming their party activities and party constitution. Pondering on this week's political situation I felt that there are no more statesmen in the world today. Countries are being run by politicians. There was a time, not too long ago, when this earth was peopled with giants. Some were good, and some were evil, but they were giants. Roosevelt and Churchill, Gandhi, Nehru, Shubhas Basu, Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Mussolini, Joseph Stalin. Why did they all live at that one particular era? Why aren't there any statesmen today? I found no answer.
   Besides politics and politicians the other major item uppermost in discussions and with the thoughts of the affluent and the poor, the politicians and the bureaucrats, is the national budget. Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam on 7th June presented a Tk 87 thousand 137 crore national budget for 2007-8 that mainly depends on internal resources mobilisation and loans. The most salient feature of the budget is the Tk 29,826 crore deficit which is about 30 per cent of the total budget. Sectoral allocations are as usual with human resources development getting about 15 per cent and defence 8.3 per cent. Current year's gross domestic product (GDP) growth has been estimated at 6.5 per cent and the projected growth is 7 per cent for the next year. In the absence of parliament the budget would be approved by a presidential ordinance after incorporating comments and suggestions by experts, civil society members and other concerned people.
   I feel, and others may agree with me, that considering the existing ground realities the budget is rather ambitious. Targets are seemingly achievable but would require strict monitoring, efficient management and the overall economic situation. The first question that comes to our mind is: will it be possible to attain internal resource mobilisation target? The proposed tax net expansion may not bring the desired result while public and bank borrowing targets would greatly reduce availability of investment funds. In the non-development part of the budget interest payment on domestic and foreign borrowings has been shown at 20.4 per cent. By the end of the next fiscal and after such huge borrowings the figure would go up substantially. Up to 20 per cent in interest payment is considered as tolerable, more than that is taken as the red signal. Much will depend on achieving the resource mobilisation target.
   If a 6.5 pc growth is achievable in such conditions with business and investment at low ebb then the growth should be higher more than 7 per cent in 2007-8. The business and investment climate still remains murky with entrepreneurs hesitant. Agriculture is unpredictable. Restoring confidence will take time.
   National budgets are not merely statements of the government's income and expenditure for a particular period, they are also documents that reflect the government's philosophy. In that sense the budget with its emphasis on poverty alleviation and expanding the social security net is quite praiseworthy. Apart from allocations for the poor, disabled and others the budget has provisions for subsidies for agriculture. This aims at increasing production so that the farm sector's contribution to GDP goes up substantially. The recasting of the customs duty slabs is indicative of the government's belief that the industry and manufacturing sectors' role would remain at present levels or increase marginally. No wonder the FBCCI President has commented that business will be more competitive now.
   Investment in human resources development ensures perhaps the best return. With 15 per cent education and IT will move forward provided the expenditures are judicious. However, duty on computer and computer parts should have been avoided. In fact there should have been subsidies as we feel that would ensure a shift from manual labour to skilled workforce. With outsourcing becoming a major income source we could benefit from that.
   The 31 per cent more allocation for the power sector is welcome. Funds were never the problem, corruption was. Without this basic infrastructure there cannot be any meaningful development. Raising the tax-free income limit to 150,000 from 120,000 would help individual taxpayers but not much. The budget's overall thrust on minimising the sufferings of the people is surely welcome. The abolition of duty and taxes on edible oil, lentils and rice imports is quite appropriate. Some other items should also have been included in the list. But one issue that needs to be addressed is the constitutional basis of the budget. The CPD on 14th June held a dialogue on the budget. There is one point made in that dialogue, that the majority of CPD's recommendations have been reflected ill the budget. This leads one to think that perhaps the CPD is the think-tank for economic affairs for this government.
   Another major development this week is in regard to Bangladesh Biman. In an effort to put the national flag carrier on an even keel, Bangladesh Biman is becoming a Public Limited Company (PLC) after the 30th of June. Besides, the number of employees will be brought down from 4800 to 3400. To that end applications have been invited from the employees to opt for voluntary retirement .720 employees have applied for the 'golden handshake' till Friday, 15th June. Besides, 1.37 employees were terminated, for different reasons including corruption, till 31st May. As of now, Biman is plagued by over-staffing, very few aircrafts, and management problems. This has led to a substantial reduction in passengers carried by Biman East and West of Dhaka. Once Birnan used to carry over 50 per cent of the passengers flying out from Dhaka. Now the passenger share has fallen below 30 percent by now. Flight operations of Biman to some of the destinations abroad (and also some domestic ones) have been cancelled due to shortage of aircraft and lack of profitability on these routes.
   We feel, however, that conversion of Biman to a PLC with one hundred per cent shares held by the government will not solve the problems facing Biman. Biman now needs strategic partners in the PLC who have enough funds for additional aircrafts and expertise to run an airline. Just retrenching staff is not enough as Biman management has to be streamlined with expert flying and ground staff, who are trained periodically to kept then abreast of the latest trends and techniques of commercial aviation, and whose inputs can make Biman competitive with other airlines flying in and out of' Dhaka. Also Dhaka and Chittagong airports have to be modernised and staffed with technically qualified and experienced personnel, so that these airports may become the hub of both passenger travel and cargo transportation in the region.
   The government now needs to take emergency measures to introduce strategic partners obtain financing for acquisition of aircraft and increase of flight destinations so that our national carrier is competitive with the other airlines of the region, and the organisation becomes a profitable operation. Our Non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) and migrant workers have always preferred to travel by Biman to and from various destinations abroad. Also our cargo import and export business, thus helping our businessmen. We look forward to the government to take all necessary steps as we have commented upon so that Bangladesh Biman regains its prestige and operational efficiency among the community of international commercial airlines and again becomes the favoured airlines for our citizens and NRBs and our citizens.
   As I found out on the day I attended the CPD dialogue on the budget, I knew half of the people present there and they knew me. But of those whom I knew, I had forgotten the names of nearly half of them. Age brings on a persistent failure to recognise the face of any other person however recently the person or persons may have mingled. In each other's company. The dictionary informs me that this condition is termed 'prosopagnoia'. The term is difficult enough to remember on top of forgetting faces at our age.
   Eid is one of the most prominent of social occasions which brings on embarrassing recurrences of this problem. And the next Eid. will be no exception to the rule. The first occasion happens on Eid days is at your neighbourhood mosque. You smile at people you do not know and they come and embrace you, projecting the concept of Islamic brotherhood. At the house of friends and relatives on Eid day, you meet more friends and relatives and the problem multiplies. Then again, Eid gives you a chance to murmur Eid greetings and a few polite words while embracing, before calling it a day, till the next Eid. But normal everyday social occasions do not offer such a respite.
   Nearly a decade back, I was at the Dhaka Club with a friend of mine. A third gentleman approached us, who I knew, and thought my friend knew from his school days. When he left, my friend who was supposed to be his class friend at Sylhet Government School, MC College and then the Dhaka University, asked me his name. When I riposted that he should know him much better than me, being in school, college and university with him, we replied that from his college days the gentleman was quite bald, but now he had full head of hair, and his accent had changed. "Being in the foreign office must have a1lowed him the benefit of the latest in hair growth technology and latest lessons in English," I replied.
   The problem becomes serious when you start forgetting the faces of people who owe you money, but then those to whom you owe money are clearly etched on your memory and their voices on the phone have acquired a truculence you cannot ignore. People who are asking you to do Tadbirs may not ring a bell in your memory, but at the same time you keep bumping into such people you would rather stay away from as they pester you with their insistent importuning. I have accepted the Alexander Woolcott policy in such cases. Accosted on the street by an old acquaintance who said "You remember me Alex?, Woolcott quickly replied 'No I can't remember your name, and please, don't tell me."
   Every time the SSC Examinations come round and then the results are announced I am reminded of my labours with arithmetic in my school days. Arithmetic played an important role in studies. The student of arithmetic who has mastered addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and successfully striven with fractions and decimals, finds himself confronted by an unbroken expanse of questions known as problems on unitary method.

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