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Why BNP should join the budget session

M. Abdul Latif Mondal
IT has been reported in a section of the press this week that that the main opposition BNP is still undecided about joining the budget session of the parliament which begins on June 2.
Those newspapers reported that the opposition chief whip, Zainul Abdin Farroque, has ruled out the possibility of BNP's returning to the house for the budget session. The explanation furnished by the opposition chief whip is that "there is no environment for returning to the house." He has, however, hinted that if the government agrees to meet their demands first, then they will think about joining the budget session.
But the same reports said that BNP's standing committee member and lawmaker Salauddin Quader Chowdhury has hinted at
BNP's joining the budget session to register its protest against the government's “misrule." There are still some other BNP leaders who maintain that nothing can be said unless the meeting of the parliamentary party is held.
Meanwhile, parliament speaker Abdul Hamid has expressed hope that the opposition will join the ensuing budget session, saying that nothing has happened after the last parliament session that could be a ground for the opposition's boycott of the budget session.
In a parliamentary system of government, the opposition party often refers to itself as a shadow government. Therefore, the opposition should conduct itself in parliament in a manner that would persuade the people of the country that it could be an improvement on the government of the day.
BNP may have certain genuine grievances, which should be redressed by the ruling AL. In
order to have those grievances redressed as well as to discuss issues of national and public interest, BNP should join the forthcoming budget session of parliament.
A budget is an annual statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the government in respect of each financial year. The rules of procedure (ROP) of parliament lay out the details of the presentation, discussion, voting and passage of the budget. The pertinent point here is that the house is at liberty to discuss the budget as a whole, or any question of principle involved in it.
By attending the budget session, BNP can pinpoint the failures, if any, in the implementation of the commitments made in the budget for FY 2009-10. BNP can further pinpoint whether sufficient allocations have been proposed in the coming budget (FY 2010-11) for the vital sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, energy and power, education, health, family welfare, etc.
Available reports suggest that BNP is preparing a shadow budget for handing over to the finance minister before his presentation of the national budget for the FY 2010-11 on June 10. Think tanks, economists, development experts and businessmen are working on the shadow budget.
Sources say that there may be recommendations for the government as to which sectors should be given more emphasis in the budget. Analysts say that the placement of shadow budget by the opposition BNP will add a new dimension to Bangladesh politics.
In its first budget (FY 2009-10) after coming to power in 2009, the AL-led alliance government made commitments for improvement and development in various fields. These include, inter alia, achieving higher economic growth, producing 500 MW additional electricity in the public sector and 440 MW in the private sector in 2009, attaining self-sufficiency in food production by 2012, including enhancing food grain storage capacity, reducing poverty and increasing income-generating activities, ensuring adequate health services for all and reducing population growth rate, stabilising the prices of essentials and protecting consumers' rights, and ensuring the independent role of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
Against these commitments, encouraging results are yet to be seen in most cases. Quoting Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the Financial Express of May 27 wrote that economic growth had slowed to a seven-year low.
The BBS said that growth in the year to June (2010) came at 5.54%, the slowest since 2002-2003. Bangladesh's financial year runs to the end of June, but the government published the growth figures ahead of the annual budget due on June 10.
Overall exports were down 1 % year on year in the nine months to the end of March, with apparel, which accounted for 80% of the $ 15.56 billion shipments last year, seeing a fall in orders.
Another BBS survey report, titled "Monitoring of Employment Survey -2009," released last week showed that unemployment increased by 28% to 27 million while underemployment increased by 27% to 1.54 crore during the last three years.
Although a decreasing trend was noticed in the rate of population growth in the recent past, there has been a reversal in the growth rate due to absence of effective delivery of services at the grassroots level. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her inaugural address to the Bangladesh Food Security Investment Forum on May 26, disclosed that that the country's population was increasing by nearly 2 million a year.
The AL-led government has not yet been able to ease the electricity crisis. It has recendy undertaken a program for installation of rental power plants based on unsolicited offers. This has invited criticism from different quarters, which allege that a situation that called for unsolicited deals to buy costly electricity was created by a quarter in the government after intentional spoiling of the tender process in late 2009 for the installation of eight rental power plants.
QuotingUNB, The Daily Star of May 30 wrote that the government would have to provide Tk.5,000 crore in subsidy to the power sector in the coming fiscal year to purchase electricity from the costly rental power plants. It can be said with certainty that consumers will have to ultimately bear the burden. A move is already on to increase the electricity tariff.
Instead of strengthening the ACC, the AL government has initiated steps to clip the ACC's wings by reducing some of its powers.
By joining the budget session, the opposition BNP can raise these and other issues of national and public interest in the house. Why should BNP allowa walkover to the rulingAL?
M. Abdul Latif Mondal is former Secretary. Email: Iatifm43@gmail.com.