The New Nation - Internet Edition

Dr. M. Azizur Rahman

Businessmen are losing confidence to invest as the government is suddenly putting a hard effort to eliminate corruption. Businessmen are afraid of legal action against them and probably high rate of taxes such as income tax, customs duty, etc. and imposition of some restriction on the withdrawal and transfer of money from the bank account. The existing business laws in Bangladesh might be inadequate and not updated to facilitate business. Business-related laws may be full of loopholes, which are hard for the businessman and investor to digest and run the business free of corruption.

As a result of anti-corruption, economic growth and development are threatened. Moreover, our export earnings from the Apparel Sector have already decreased by 24 per cent. Foreign investment has decreased substantially. More alarming is that many businessmen who used to be the builders of this society have started to think of going abroad and settling there. Many talented students studying abroad used to come back home. But, they are now fairly confused about their returning home. If we become unable to save the business by any means, economic growth will continue to go down for the next decade. So, what to do now? We do not have options except to the formation of Truth Commission and to make amendment to the existing business-related laws to eliminate the unnecessary and unwanted provisions/clauses from the frame of law, if any, that might make its implementation difficult and some business actions in reality might be easily defined as corruption.

We need to save the business and the businessman because the businessman finances himself, other businessmen and the people working for him. Businessmen finance the private-and public sector, 'and the Government and the people working for the Government through tax. They are the major tax payers in any society. Businessmen are both producers and consumers. They finance the production and consumption of goods and services. Businessmen produce goods and services at home and sell it to domestic consumers, Government and export to foreign countries at the maximum price. They import goods and services cheaply produced abroad for domestic consumption, business and Government. It we do not save the business, none of us can survive. The Government needs tax from the business for its activities. According to Daily Ittefaq of October 7national economy, its growth and development are mostly contributed by the business.

The amendment to the business-related laws should be made in such a way that it provides incentives to the businessman for hard work. Because people attempt to maximise their satisfaction in life based on their ability. We are all selfish by birth. We want more of everything. We perform the best if we work for ourselves. How does the selfishness benefit the society? Let's make lemonade out-of-Iemon. As we are selfish, we work hard for ourselves and our families. Ultimately, we work hard for the society or the nation. Selfishness means that we utilise our efforts to maximise our benefits, not by taking away the other's pie. More we are selfish, more we do things for ourselves. Selfishness let the people help themselves in their effort to maximise their satisfaction in life. The whole society will get benefit from the human's unselfish efforts and hard work.

The businessman will use the business-related law to achieve his objective of profit maximisation which is the 'indirect' benefit for the society. Business laws are, therefore, made to put the business effort to maximise benefit for the business as well as for the society. Business laws are made by law-makers who are Members of the Parliament (MPs). MPs are politicians or businessmen or both politicians and businessmen and are considered well conversed about the business. MPs make a business law to achieve some business and social objectives of economic growth and meet basic needs including those of food, clothes, shelter, education and health. Documents on these laws are, however, drafted by some trained and untrained experts. Quite a few unnecessary and difficult provisions or clauses might have been put in the draft law that make the implementation of law relatively difficult. For example, the 1992 Private Universities Act says, each of the Private University will have its own campus on a plot of 15 bighas. This provision of Private University Act is impractical in Dhaka City. Inability to implement this law is neither illegal, nor is it a corruption. Objectives of making law may not be achieved because of the above mentioned difficulties and the whole society and the economy may, therefore, be in trouble.

The draft document on the business law should be shared by both the representative of the business and the Government. The business law may not be assumed to be free of any conflict of interest between the businessman and the Government. The businessman would like to utilise the law to maximise their benefit, which will tend to minimise the social or Government benefit. On the contrary, the Government would like to use the same law to maximise the social or Government benefit, the effort of which is likely to minimise the businessman's benefit. The businessmen and the Government or its draft experts of business law are clearly two separate parties or entities, or individuals or group of individuals with conflict of interest. If only one group of individuals/party is alone given the responsibility of making a law and its draft document on business law, it will be very difficult to implement that law. The stakeholders/investors will look for the loopholes. Once again, it may, therefore, be mentioned that draft document on business law should be shared by all parties including stakeholders, investors and representatives of businessmen and Government so as to maximise the benefit of all parties and harm none from the use of the law.

Formation of Truth Commission is likely to face a challenge of discrimination. The law under which Truth Commission will work may be applicable to all parties including the businessman. Punishment in different degrees may be sanctioned according to the nature of crime. Action by Truth Commission alone is, therefore, not enough. As a complement to the proposed action by Truth-Commission, we may make an amendment to the business related laws to eliminate some unnecessary and difficult provisions and clauses within the law, if any, which may make them tough to implement.

As mentioned above, a committee may be formed on an urgent basis by including the representative of the businesses and the Government to amend the business-related laws. Truth Commission must include stakeholders, investors. and businessmen, social scientists and economists as members to better understand the problems and prospects and magnitude of crime in business and its causes.

(The writer is Vice-Chancellor and Economist, Uttara University)