The New Nation - Internet Edition

CYCLONE Sidr that hit the southern zones of Bangladesh on November 15, has been extremly disastrous. Millions of people who turned homeless had to wait for relief for survival. Reports on death and injury of people in the affected areas have appeared in the press and the electronic media. The government has started providing relief materials to the affected people. Relevant official agencies have obtained fiscal support and relief materials including food grains, clothes plus medicine for distribution.

The use of resources for implementing rehabilitation programmes in the affected zone have to be optimised. Millions of people have lost their assets including standing crops plus cattle and fisheries. Domestic animals in the cyclone-hit areas died helplessly as hardly there were shelters to move those to. The existing facilities for sheltering animals had been damaged due to lack of maintenance. Cyclone shelters, inadequate though, have been built for people without provision for animals and poultry birds.

Against this backdrop, the move of the Ministries of Food and Disaster Management that one thousand new cyclone shelters will be set up in the vulnerable southern districts in the coming months sounds practical. Fifty percent of such shelters will be built with internal resources and the rest from foreign aid and donations. The existing cyclone shelters numbering over two thousand in the coastal areas would also be repaired. The major thrust may be put upon the construction of "killas", mud-forts for sheltering domestic animals as well as embankments around lakes and water-reserves to protect fish resources. The proposed mud-forts would be set up in 790 unions of twelve coastal districts. If the shelters for animals and fishes are improved and increased the loss of animals and fish may be less in future. For this, the safe zones have to be brought under effective management by officials and local government bodies including the Union Parishads, Upazila and District Councils.

Disaster management has to be kept under constant vigilance by official agencies, NGOs and local government bodies. The inflow of fiscal resources, relief materials including food and medicine, building materials and other goods has increased. The distribution of all these materials has to be efficient. The armed forces, the official agencies and private individuals and organisations have so far broadened their involvement. Along with that, the participation of the US armed forces in relief operations is expected to make the efforts more speedy and fruitful. The building of mud forts for animals as part of the preparedness programme would prove extremely useful in the event of cyclones like Sidr.

THE picture which is emerging about the relief and rehabilitation efforts in the cyclone-affected areas, is one of some degree of indiscipline although in some cases the operations are going well. There is a great need for the entire exercise to run very efficiently indeed, to help overcome the very extensive damages suffered by the people in nearly one-third of the country in varying degrees. The complaints which have become louder from the very distressed people are that some of them are getting oversupplied with relief whereas others are getting nearly bypassed by the same. Lack of coordination between government relief distributors and the NGOs, private persons and organisations, is leading to relief sometimes of the same sort reaching the same recipients repeatedly while others very much in need and located at a distance are finding no relief.

The air-dropping of emergency foods and other supplies or tossing them on affected people, have also meant scramble for them. Fisticuffs were reported between the ones who could grab such dropped items and others wanting to lay their hands on the same. The scuffles caused serious injuries in some cases. Thus, this type of unsystematic dispensation of relief goods must give way immediately to better planned efforts. The same should aim to disburse relief materials in proportion to need to all the affected ones. Ideally, everybody in the affected zones should be covered successfully. It is very necessary to have accurate data by now about the people who were hit by the cyclone and the types of their needs. A list of them should be drawn up and a card should be issued against each of them or against the head of a family. The card holders should be asked to report on a regular basis to the local disbursement place and they can be supplied on a weekly or fortnightly basis going by the cards.

The greatest benefit of it will be every deserving person getting supplies regularly. The grievances now noted in relief distribution will come to an end. The other major aim should be achieving coordination in distribution of relief materials from different sources. It should be tried to give the relief in a coordinated way from the same place. The private groups can be asked to liaison with the government for the purpose. All or nearly all of the cyclone afflicted are in need of ready food, clean water, match boxes, fuel and shelter. In the next phase, they should be disbursed cash money for house building, for buying fishing nets, agricultural inputs and other implements for resuming their normal economic activities. Special agricultural loans will have to be considered for them. The new loans should be free from interest and terms and conditions for their repayment must be made as flexible as possible.

Tayeb Husain

I am pleased to see that Mr. Md. Basum Billah, a specialist in Brac Education Programme, PACE, was kind enough to go through my write-up in the New Nation (Making the Local Government Strong) and has written a nice commentary on it (on 25th Nov 2007) supporting my idea with a few strong reservations. The problem arose, perhaps, due to lack of clarity in explaining different points in my write-up. I am sure that Mr. Billah's personal observation of the circumstances that prevail in our present local government administration may also have influenced his support against giving education, justice and policing to local government's authority. I shall once again try my best to put forward my idea in a nutshell and make the missing points available for Mr. Billah and other readers for better understanding of the concept of strong local government and the circumstances under which it can work in the best interest of a nation.

Local government is the most effective administrative unit in most of the developed countries of the world and its efficiency and usefulness can be observed candidly under certain circumstances. Those most important circumstances are, (1). Voting System, (2). A fully independent Judiciary and (3). A sound administrative system

Local and national government of a country work best where the government is elected by 'Proportional Voting system' and not by "majority voting system". Democracy is better respected in proportional voting system (or proportional representation system) where one votes to a party rather than an individual. Among advanced western democracies it is also the predominant voting system. The basic approach of proportional voting system is simple; legislators are elected in multimember districts instead of single-member districts, and the number of seats that a party wins in an election is proportional to the amount of its support among voters. So if you have a 10-member district and a party wins 51% of the vote, they receive 51% seats. If another party wins 25% of the vote, they get 25% seats; and if a third party gets 15% of the vote, they win 15% seats and so on. This system eliminates 'mushroom' growth of political parties by fixing it obligatory for a party obtaining a minimum percentage of popular votes in the election.

Proportional voting system was devised to solve the many ills caused by majority voting system. As a rule, proportional-voting system provides and guarantees more accurate representation of parties, better representation for minorities, fewer wasted of votes, a higher levels of voter turnout, better representation of women, greater likelihood of majority rule, and little opportunity for vote buying and of using muscle power.

Decent people are attracted in politics by this system because they need not spend money or to run after the voters to be elected. The political parties list their candidates serially in this system and voters know in advance who would win the election if a party is expected to get a certain percentage of total votes. A party who nominates thieves and thugs would be rejected by the decent voters and thus, more decency would prevail in the election process. By this system, the government of the ignorant, to some extends, also could be eliminated. (Anybody interested to know little about proportional voting system can read the election system of Germany or any of the Scandinavian countries).

The Judiciary is expected to be fully independent to safeguard a true democratic system of a country. A fully independent judiciary makes the executive branch careful and fearful to engage in unlawful activities. Rule of law must prevail while governing a country and the judiciary must look after and defend it as a sentinel of justice and fair play. Law and order must be respected by everybody and none should be above law. Personal rule, the dominant scenario in almost all the 3rd world countries, should be made an offence and punishable by law for well functioning the administration of a country including the administration of the local government.

No doubt that electing a government and local government by proportional voting system would put the politics of any country in the right direction but again, it would not function as we desire if real and fundamental reforms were not brought into the present administrative system of the country.

The Indian sub-continent was a British colony until 1947 but even today the colonial administrative apparatus are almost intact and seems infallible in the countries of this region. Lord Cornwallis (Governor-General of India, 1793-1798) was the first to divide the country into districts and the origin of the post of today's DC started rightly in 1787. Lord William Bentinck (1828-1835) divided the districts into "Sub-division" and also formed the "Divisions" containing a few districts. It was in 1829, exactly 178 years ago and the same administrative system prevails in the Indian Sub-continent almost in the same way.

British rule in India was for the British colonial interest and it is unfortunate that almost 1.5 billion people can not think of any other way to rule them but moving round and round around the old British colonial structure. What I want to say is that, for democracy and development, we need to establish a government through election and that election should be on the basis of proportional representation system where judiciary would be fully independent and administration shall be totally overhauled making the Local government strong and fully independent. Strong local government, once again I would say, means all power should effectively lie with this tire of the administration for local administration, including education, justice and policing and, in spite of the fact that our Local government leaders, at the moment and as Mr. Billah has rightly observed, are mostly illiterate and equally and horrendously corrupt.

But who is not corrupt in Bangladesh? From a village tout to a distinguished intellectual or a vice-chancellor of a university or a cabinet secretary, how many honest people we have in our country? Is an honourable member of the parliament or the person who leads him/her less corrupt than a member or chairman of a Union Parisad? Is it not the system that makes people corrupt and encourage corruption further?

Mr. Billah expressed fear that members and chairman of the union council would interfere in school activity, in local justice system or in policing if full power is given to them to look after these departments. Mr. Billah is right and all those problems will come if the local government's constitution and the frame remain as it is now. Before giving local government full power, the system, right and responsibilities of the local government must be framed anew and clearly defined. And that is that a Local Government must have two bodies: (1). The Local government assembly (or the decision making organ) and (2). The Executive office of the administration (that would execute the decisions of the local assembly). Members of the Local government assembly will be elected by the local people whereas the members of the Executive committee would be the appointed permanent staffs of the Local government. Decision making and execution of a decision would not be executed by the same body. That is how it works in a developed Western democracy. The system offers a check and balance. Mr. Billah, can the Chairman of a Union Parisad (UP) do corruption and steal UP money if he is allowed to make law only whereas the execution of the law is performed by someone else? Here I am talking about the permanent officials who are fully independent to run and execute decision taken by the elected public representatives.

The UP will get money to run the local schools and hospital but money will be spent by the Executive Committee of the UP while the UP Chairman and members may have a careful eyes on the Executive Committee while the spending takes place. The basic and fundamental rules and regulations, of course, are always framed by the national legislature which local government follows faithfully adjusting to local needs and circumstances. They can also frame their own laws that may be necessary to make life of the citizens of their locality better.

Mr. Billah opposes the idea of abolishing the post and office of the DC and Upazila Nirbahi Officer. I do not know if Mr. Billah overlooked the fact that there is no mighty DC or Upazila Nirbahi officer in the administration of any developed country. These good for nothing white elephants have no function in a modern state. There jobs are done at local level by the local administration. Officers of the cadre services, to suit our situation, can start their job in the Executive office of the UP with less show off and performing more useful works.

A Secretary is a powerful official in any government but does he need to be super human to execute the decision of the government? A public servant whether he is a Cabinet Secretary or the OC at a Thana is a public servant and his job is to obey and execute decisions of elected representatives of the people following the rules and regulations of the state. The abolition of cadre service would be also a nice action. Who needs cadre service and for what? It is training that makes a good officer of anybody who has some education and enough basic human qualities.

But most importantly, no country can develop and achieve prosperity and peace without good and strong local government. Local government is the backbone of all the democratic developed countries. Britain and USA do not have proportional representation system of voting and their national politics, especially that of USA are corrupt and faulty for that reason but luckily they have strong local governments and that is why their societies function and they are still prosperous countries.

Finally, we need not judge our local government leaders just as touts; they can be efficient and honest representatives of the people too provided we are ready to give them full responsibility to take care of and to run our affairs. It is also a sad and unfortunate scenario that "clean and educated people hardly come to politics particularly in local politics" in Bangladesh as Mr Billah said. It does not however confirm that "politics is the job of the scoundrels" only. It is the political leaders and their right political decisions and proper execution of their right decisions by the honest and faithful officials of the administrative system that uplift a nation. No nation can develop and prosper without good political leadership.

Dr. M. Azizur Rahman

Recession is a difficult time for the economy or a country, when there is a backward move of business and industries, and less business and less trade and less industrial activities than usual. More of our people are unemployed as an impact of the current recession.

Economic objectives of the Government are to maximise the economic growth, national income and output or production or goods and services of all kinds including those goods of basic needs that are essential in life such as foods and nutrition, clothes, shelter, health and education. Among the other objectives are decreasing unemployment to a natural rate so that everybody is getting job who would like to work and can maintain their purchasing power in the face of inflation, and meet their basic needs in life. The third major objective of the economy is to earn the price stability so as to help us avoid an undesired distribution of income between different groups. From price instability or higher prices of goods and services or inflation, consumers suffer from relatively low level of purchasing power. Low income consumers are hard hit the most.

As mentioned before, the economy has recently been in deep recession. Due to higher unemployment, actual income and output are far fess than potential or full employment level of output. National income and output and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its growth are significantly low and getting lower. Many are assuming the growth less than 6% and will be lower further. If any active economic policy is not taken now, the economy is going to be in trouble soon or in near future. Active policies are needed at the earliest possible convenience to pull the economy out of recession.

Demand for all kinds of goods and services including the purchase of housing and apartment, durable, necessary and other than necessary goods have decreased substantially as the consumers are scared or making a big purchase. Investment in business is a large part of aggregate demand, which has been decreasing significantly due to a lack of confidence in the recent activism of anti-corruption. Economic cure is getting worse than the disease or recession. Foreign investment in Bangladesh has decreased almost by one-fourth due to the political instability.

Our competitiveness in international market has decreased due to higher prices of our goods and services. Many of our exports including those of apparels and frozen fish have gone down. Export problems are getting worse also due to the lack of quality assurance and timely shipping in this uncertain state of manufacturing world and export sector. Finally, our net export (export-import) has been decreasing. Balance of trade is not favourable anymore.

Bangladesh is a major importing country. We cannot stop or even decrease the import of energies, oil and essential goods and services even though their prices have increased in the exporting country and India due to worldwide inflation. Further, our exchange rate is too low, which is also contributing towards our balance of trade in getting worse. However, import of essential intermediate goods and raw materials including fertiliser has decreased compared to its demand at home. This is also may be due to a lack of confidence in import business that requires a high margin.

Importing of all these above are impacting on pushing the cost of production up at home and raising the inflation.

From the above statement, we can easily infer that aggregate demand for goods and services have decreased, which have a multiplier effect on lowering national income and output and the standard of life and living.

On the supply side, cost of production has been increased due to higher wage in private and other sectors, higher import price of oil raw materials. Supply side problem has been complicated with higher unemployment, labour unrest for higher wage especially in apparel sector, recent inundation by flood, rainfall, drought, river erosion, political instability, and activism of anticorruption. Aggregate supply of goods and services have decreased to a great extent.

What kind of economic policy do we take now? Can we take any contractionary economic policy by decreasing money supply or by decreasing the budget deficit, or by increasing tax rate. No, not at all, we cannot afford taking any of the above contractionary policies in this economic stage of recession, which will further squeeze the economy and might take it to a point of collapse. Since our inflation is more of cost push than a demand pull, we cannot take any policy that will decrease the aggregate demand further. In fact, we need to increase and maintain aggregate demand by the demand management expansionary monetary or fiscal or tax policies.

We take an expansionary economic policy to increase the aggregate demand for good and services. In this article it is clearly agreed to increase money supply, or increase the budget deficit further, or increasing both.

It will also increase the consumer's purchasing power to some extent by accommodating a part of inflation. As an element of supply side policy recommendation by economists, a decrease in tax may be undertaken to increase the both aggregate demand and aggregate supply in such a way that the total tax collection by Government may not decrease. If the luck favours us in enhancing the growth significantly, the government might even increase its tax revenue for a total from the higher level of national income and output. Also, the Supply Side Policy (SSP) is not expected to have any effect on increasing prices.

The article has made a categorical suggestion that the Bangladesh Bank's earlier decision of contractionary monetary police and tight credit to control inflation was far less than a good policy. Because this was not a treatment of a cost-push inflation.

Among other policy agenda would be to increase productivity, or per labour production by technological improvement and innovative discovery of production mechanism, cost effective technology, substitute goods and products for consumption and use as intermediate goods or raw materials. Import substitution manufacturing establishment is to be increased. For agriculture, private sourcing for high yielding seed variety, fertiliser, irrigation technology and insecticides may he expanded.

[The writer is Vice-Chancellor and Chief Adviser (and Economist), Institute of Policy Research (IPR), Uttara University]