Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Friday said the BNP-led government had made the country’s economy a booming one but the incumbent government turned it into a hollow economy as looting was continuing all around.
He made the allegation at a discussion marking the 10th death anniversary of former BNP standing committee member and finance minister M Saifur Rahman who died in a road accident at Ashuganj in Brahamanbaria on September 5, 2009.
Remembering Saifur Rahman’s contribution, Fakhrul said that the deceased leader laid the foundation of the country’s economic lifeline by introducing value added tax, flourishing country’s textile and garment sector and manpower export sector.
‘He brought discipline in the country’s macro economy,’ said Fakhrul recalling that, as a finance minister, he did not allow any private bank despite pressures within the party and always upheld the country’s interests.
He criticised the government’s approval of new banks that were not doing well. ‘Banks mushroomed in the country. They have stumbled down.’
Fakhrul said that if Saifur was a finance minister, he would not allow coal-based power plant at a place like Rampal in Bagerhat.
‘Saifur Rahman made our economy as an emerging one. Now it has become a hollow economy,’ he said, alleging that the government indulged in mega-corruption through mega-projects.
Referring to corruption report on media that a curtain was bought at about Tk 37 lakh in Faridpur Medical College, one pillow for furnishing Ruppur Nuclear Power Plant apartments was bought at Tk 5,957 and it took Tk 760 to transport each of the pillows, he said, ‘curtain has defeated pillow. This is the ground reality of this government. Looting is all around.’
He alleged that the government was not allowing to speak the oppositions and that they had kept all under their control.
BNP standing committee member Khandaker Mosharrof Hossain said that Saifur Rahman developed the country’s rural economy but now the government was advancing through mega-projects from where rural economy would gain almost nothing.
The party standing committee member Iqbal Hasan Mahmud, vice -chairmen Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yusuf and Shamsuzzaman Dudu, joint-secretary general Moazzem Hossain Alal, Sylhet mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury and late Saifur Rahman’s son M Naser Rahman, also BNP Moulvibazar district president, also spoke.
