Politics gets the better of economics

This is no reflection, we would like to deduce, on the merit or otherwise of Tata's proposal but rather the timing it has been foot-dragged to, by the procrastination and indecisiveness of our government of the day.

After long-winded negotiations through a roller coaster ride Tata had lately sent in a revised proposal. Has the latest submission from the giant industrial house received due consideration of the government? If so, what stopped them from responding to it one way or the other? If it was not in the best interest of Bangladesh could that not have been conveyed to them so as to solicit further modification if it was deemed entirely unavoidable?

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We have withheld our decision for political reasons but Tata, it is worthwhile to note, did not link it to political consideration or to any preference for a particular party government. It is in the fitness of things that multi-billion dollar investment proposals with long term gestation are seen purely as momentous economic engagement having nothing to do with the changing of guards or vagaries of politics in a country. That is primarily because such deals are struck with the state, not the government.

If this is how a country treats a big investment proposal what kind of signal are we putting across to the world by way of cosying up to internationally reputed investors? The BOI chief Mahmudur Rahman has rightly lamented that on the one hand there is insistence on procuring investment from abroad but on the other when it starts rolling in we turn our back on political grounds.

There is a clearly belated talk about associating the opposition with the process. May we ask, why this was not done from the beginning? If the government is sincere about giving the opposition a role, then let there be a policy that while considering investment proposal worth above one billion US dollars, the opposition must as a rule be associated with the negotiation process? That would make sense. As it stands now, it looks like a stance taken on purely political considerations.