Saifur's tirade against media

The minister is well known for his acerbic and inchoate remarks against the media, and it appears that the performance of his government, for which he has very little to show, is telling on him. It is only our sense of propriety, modesty and sobriety that prevents us from terming his comments as the uttering of a man in delirium. The minister may be forgiven, for he knows not what he speaks.

The minister has maligned the media for smearing the image of the country abroad. But look at what the finance minister had himself said in recent times. He had made very rueful remarks on corruption in Bangladesh, sparing no one, not even the ministries, for being pervaded by this cancerous ailment. His admission of his inability to cleanse the NBR of the corrupt officials illustrates the level to which some of our government institutions have sunk. Even the Parliamentary Standing Committees that are dominated by the ruling coalition have repeatedly brought out the corruption issue. His comments on lack of good governance raised the hackles of his party men and the ruling coalition partners in the past. So where have the media gone wrong? Should the press be faulted for carrying comments on what legislators and ministers utter?

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The media have from time to time, as is its duty to do so, brought up the lack of transparency in government deals, the instances of corruption, some in very high places, of misgovernance, of interministerial conflict and lack of coordination that have wrecked our standing in the eye of foreign donors due to failure to timely implement government projects. Had these timely warnings been heeded the image of the country would not have been tainted at all.

Without going into the litany of failures, suffice it to say that the government's expressed rationale in constituting a new force in the form of RAB, demonstrates the abysmal law order in the country as well as the erosion of confidence in the judiciary and judicial process of the land. These are but a sad commentary on the national institutions and negation of their role. Was the media wrong in pointing these out?

It is not so much the country's as the government's image that the minister is perhaps worried about. And it is the government's own doing that the image is bad. Don't blame the media for it.