Former Jahangirnagar University Professor Anu Muhammad has labeled the election manifestos and promises made by political parties as ‘Political Fraud’.
He made the remarks at a discussion titled ‘Specific Proposals and Actions to Demand the Reopening of State-owned Jute Mills’ held at the National Press Club in Dhaka on Monday morning. The programme was organised by the State-owned Jute Mill Protection Council.
Anu Muhammad said election manifesto promises have become a habit of political parties. If you mention these promises, they might even laugh a little. This fraud is a part of their politics, he said.
He said political parties may appear different from each other, but there is no difference in their policies regarding the closure or privatisation of state-owned factories. According to him, political parties promise before elections that they will reopen state-owned factories. However, they know they will not be able to implement those promises within the existing state system.
Anu Muhammad said the transfer of state-owned assets to the private sector has continued since the 1980s. He claimed that the same structure has been working behind this process for decades. He said international organisations, the bureaucracy and large business groups formulate these policies. The policy makers do not change. Only the faces of those who implement the policies change, he said.
As a result, promises to reopen state-owned jute mills remain unfulfilled even after different political parties come to power.
Speaking about jute mill workers, he said they have suffered the most from privatisation. He added that paying workers their rightful wages was not difficult, but they were not paid.
Anu Muhammad also rejected the arguments used in favour of privatising jute mills. He described claims that there is no demand for jute, that the mills only incur losses, and that they cannot be run successfully as fraud and lies. Development economics researcher Maha Mirza also addressed the meeting. She said all governments think in a similar way about workers, employment and the protection of domestic industries.
“They speak about development, but when it comes to workers, their thinking is the same. They never look at the economy from the workers' perspective. They see it from the perspective of businessmen. The entire government machinery thinks this way,” she said.
Referring to Bangladesh as a country of manual labour, Maha Mirza said it is not possible to make everyone an engineer, programmer or computer scientist. She said industries must be developed and jobs created for millions of workers, adding that it is the government's responsibility.
The meeting was chaired by Bangladesh Sramik Karmachari Federation President Zahirul Islam. CPB General Secretary Abdullah Kafi Ratan and National Liberation Council President Faizul Hakim Lala also spoke at the programme.
