BANGLADESH

Bangladesh's politics of conflict is beyond comprehension, visiting German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said as he met the members of civil society to get first-hand information on the state of governance in the country.

He arrived on Saturday morning on a two-day maiden visit to Bangladesh.

Westerwelle's visit comes at a time when the ruling Awami League and opposition BNP have locked horns over which government would oversee the next general elections.

The visit marked 40 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"Why this conflict?" he was quoted to have asked by Dr Iftekharuzzaman, Executive Director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), after the meeting.

Iftekharuzzaman told bdnews24.com that the minister said: "We don't understand why this conflict! We have competitive relations with the oppositions in Europe, but here (in Bangladesh) it is different."

"We told him that here political conflict is mainly personality based. Politics and businesses are linked. So politics works as a tool to make money," he said.

Dr Muhammad Ibrahim, Executive Director of Centre for Mass Education in Science and younger brother of Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, and D Rozario of Christian charity Caritas joined Iftekharuzzaman during the meeting.

Iftekharuzzaman said governance in the country and the work of civil society dominated their 30-min talks.

They told the minister that the problem centering the caretaker government issue would be resolved at one stage.

Iftekharuzzaman said, "We told him (Westerwelle) the political parties would agree each other at one stage and the elections would be held with the participation of all."

The German minister also wanted to know whether civil society and media were facing challenges to carry out their jobs.

"We told him as civil society and media criticise government's activities, they fo face challenges."

Iftekharuzzaman said they also told the minister that Bangladesh had all the institutions to practise democratic governance. "We have all hardware, but we don't have software," he said referring to the politics of conflict and corruption in the country.

When asked, the TIB Executive Director said they did not discuss the issue of Grameen Bank and Dr Yunus.

"We even did not even utter the name of Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus during the talks," he said.

After his arrival, the German minister at a joint press conference with his counterpart Dipu Moni said he wanted to have first-hand information about the political situation in Bangladesh.

"I am not here to give any lessons," he had said.

The minister, however, urged political actors to work together to strengthen democracy, human rights situation and establish the rule of law.

Like US State of Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, he also expressed concern about the recent killing of a garment sector trade union activist Aminul Islam and the disappearance of BNP leader M Ilias Ali.

Germany was the biggest trading partner of Bangladesh in Euro zone with a volume of over $4 billion in the last fiscal, while over the last 40 years, Berlin has provided over Euro 2 billion as development assistance to Dhaka.

A 10-day training workshop on autism started in Dhaka on Saturday with a view to develop skills of people working with special kids.

Psychologists, teachers of special schools as well as general schools, child specialists, social workers, medical professionals, medical students, therapists and parents of the autistic children will attend the workshop in separate sessions at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, said a media release.

Autism is a developmental disorder that appears in the first three years of life and affects brain's normal development of social and communication skills.

Experts say those children cannot pick up self-care tasks – dressing, self-feeding, using toilet and others – by watching and imitating. They do not make eye-to-eye contact and have single-track thought process, but they have 'hidden' talents like paintings and music.

As autism is a specialised issue, Vice-chancellor Prof Pran Gopal Datta said training needed to better understand and diagnose autism.

At least 350 participants will attend the training conducted by global autism experts.

"It's (offering training) a continuous process at the university," the vice-chancellor said.

Dhaka University's Department of Education and Counseling Psychology was assisting the medical university for the training, the release added.

Estimates suggest every 8 in 1000 children are autistic in Bangladesh. It is 1 in 88 children in the US.

Residents of Barapukuria, affected by a coal mining project there, took out a 'stick procession' on Saturday demanding compensation for displacement.

Several thousand affected people of the area took part in the procession.

The residents, protesting under the banner of Jibon O Sampad Rakkha Committee, had also staged a five-day sit-in programme in front of the Barapukuria Coal Mining Company office a few days back. They announced to continue with their agitation as the administration did not accede to their demand on Friday.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Faruk Hossain said the administration had a cheque of Tk 200 million ready for the affected locals and the authorities had already offered it to them.

Convenor of the protestors' platform Ibrahim Khalil confirmed the administration's move regarding the cheque and told bdnews24.com that they would continue the demonstration until the government compensated them fully for their losses.

ASP Faruk said a large number of police, Rapid Action Battalion and BGB personnel had been deployed in the mining area to avert any untoward incident.

"The administration will have to take responsibility of the consequences if our demands are not met in time and if our peaceful programmes take a turn for worse," Khalil warned.

Additional District Magistrate Abdul Malek, when contacted, declined comments on the issue.

The Managing Director of the Barapukuria Coal Mine, Engineer Kamruzzaman, however, claimed that coal extraction was going on normally.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has once again defended her government's move of setting up rental and quick rental power plants.

"Many have questioned why these power plants had been set up. They said that these are ruinous. But you should consider its advantages. The industrial production and exports have got a boost due the rising power generation." she said on Saturday.

The Prime Minister was addressing a discussion marking the 63rd founding anniversary of Awami League at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the city.

Apart from the opposition, some experts have also criticised the government for setting up rental and quick rental plants one after another across the country by providing huge amount of subsidies to the energy and power sectors.

To deal with the soaring demand for power, the government set up 24 furnace oil-based rental and peaking power plants soon after it took the office in January in 2009. It also plans to set up 27 more power plants of this category. But production in most of the power plants have remained suspended as the prices of furnace oil have gone up.

Next elections

Asserting that the next parliamentary elections would be held under the present government's tenure, Hasina said: "We've taken measure so that none can grab the state power by violating the constitution."

Hasina, also the President of the Awami League, also referred that the Awami League government have so far arrangeed 5,175 elections including 12 by-elections and polls to city corporations, municipalities and upazila and union parishads in a free, fair and neutral manner.

The Finance Minister was all smiles as a businessman made the case for quick rental power on Saturday at a budget review session organised by journalists.

"Bangladesh would have been a lot poorer, the GDP loss would have been a staggering Tk 160,000 crore," said Annisul Huq, a former president of FBCCI and Saarc Chamber, as the Finance Minister listened.

A M A Muhith aside, former Planning Minister and BNP Standing Committee member Abdul Moyeen Khan and BIDS researcher Binayak Sen also took part in the discussions sponsored by the Economic Reporters' Forum (ERF).

"What else could we have done?" Huq said defending the current government's decision to go for the quick fix in the energy-starved Bangladesh, "There was no gas to fuel our plants and we would have been stuck with just 3,500 megawatts."

"That would have been disasterous for our economy ... I would have been struggling with production, exports," said Huq, also a former president of garment exporters' group BGMEA.

Minister Muhith was quick to grab the opportunity. "Yes, we were absolutely right."

The government's opting for the ambitious and apparently expensive option — oil-fired rental plants to feed factories and farms — has drawn fierce criticism from some professionals and opposition politicians.

"As someone closely involved, I have done some research," said Huq, who owns two plants. "Yes, our country had to incur a huge subsidy bill, but we must take into account the benefits we have accrued."

In the last three and a half years, nearly 6,000 megawatts of extra power was added to the national grid, he pointed out, thanks to the quick rental policy. "As of Jan 2009, the old plants were capable of producing only 3,874 megawatts although the capacity was 5166 megawatts in theory."

"This extra electricity created nine lakh (900,000) new jobs solely in the garments industry and gave us an extra US$ 7 billion in exports revenue," he claimed.

"Our agriculture would have suffered a loss of over Tk 9,000 crore," he argued and added gains from quick power far outweighed the subsidies, estimated to be Tk 16,600 crore.

The government subsidises the fuel used by these plants (Tk 9900 crore so far), and buys power at a rate higher than the selling price, losing Tk 6700 crore so far.

BNP's Moyeen Khan was, however, not convinced. "This rental power option has been disasterous. This has haemorrhaged our economy."

Muhith said the rental power gave the country much-needed breathing space. "We can now concentrate more on larger plants, work towards long-term solution."

By 2015, the minister said, Bangladesh would be able to come out of the rental dependence.