Opinion
Help the 'needy' and save us
Most of us are poor and needy. All the religions dictate the respective followers to help and support the needy. Islam in particular instructs to help the fellow poor through fitra and zakat. At the Eid congregation this year while the Imam was giving sermons prior to prayer, I was distracted by something else and guessed who were the true needy and poor in Bangladesh?
Let me explain the reasons for being distracted and distressed. As the Ramadan was approaching this year like every Ramadan of the past, the prices of specific commodities both perishable and non-perishable shot up as a matter of routine malpractice. There were no shortages of these commodities either at the growers' level or at the wholesale market. The growers did not enjoy the benefit of price spiral. The importers, hoarders, wholesale dealers and retailers harvested the profit bonanza. The green chili (kancha marich) and eggfruit (baygoon) attained fame by becoming free market world-class commodities with opportunity cost. These were followed by sugar and its price shot up from Tk 38 to Tk 60-75 per kilo on the pretext of sudden price increase in the international market.
How on earth the sugar that had been in the shops and godowns for weeks would be dearer because of today's price increase in the international market? The same rule does not immediately apply if there is fall in the price in the international market and it takes months to adjust.
When the markets became volatile, very volatile, the bosses of the commerce ministry and FBCCI wake up from siesta to meet the electronic media as well as to visit Kawranbazar, Newmarket, Shantinagar, Moulavibazar etc as if the past bosses had not practiced it earlier. During the past caretaker period, we had vivid glimpses of vicious practices by the crooked importers and hoarders at Khatungonj, Moulavibazar and elsewhere. We were shown how foods were adulterated and rotten items including dates and baby foods unsafe for consumption marketed remorselessly.
A greater surprise came from the BGMEA when its President declared that without Tk 3500 crore stimulus packages from the government, the owners would be unable to pay wages and bonuses to the garment workers before the Eid. This was an incredible attempt. There is a saying in the capitalist world: the first million the businessmen or industrialists make is dirty sometime but thereafter they make money ethically. But all our millions in Bangladesh are dirty for one reason or other. The industry sector beginning from nineteen eighties has developed a culture of loan defaulting on the money it borrowed from the banks. If we today take lessons from the capitalist west how they have taken over the good assets of the ailing banks and industries through stimulus packages leaving out the toxic assets, all the good assets of the loan defaulting companies and individuals in Bangladesh could have been similarly taken over by the banks.
Unabated corruption in the government offices and departments has become our national practice and pride! We are suffering day in and day out at the hands of such officers and employees occupying these offices and departments. Their greed is insatiable. The past Caretaker regime caught the "Bon-khadoks" but it left out many more like "Rasta-khadok", "Paribesh-khadok", "Shikkha- khadok", Shasthya-khadok" etc mysteriously. We have no sympathy for any 'Khadok'. We want them caught and sent to prison.
So, I was right being distracted by the needy ones. The needy ones are not the landless forty percent or the ones belonging to eighty percent population making less than one dollar a day. The real needy and poor are: loan-defaulters; a section of importers, hoarders, wholesale dealers, retailers; corrupt officials and employees who make us suffer because they are not satiated. We should collect alms nationally and give away to these needy 'poor' to save the nation from their wrath.
Why things have not changed or do not improve while the sufferings of the common mass continue? Because all the governments whether democratic or autocratic have been kind and faithful to these 'needy' people and never taken them to task. We are angry and aggrieved; we humbly ask the government to take some drastic actions against these people. God save us from the wrath of the 'needy poor' and guide the government to be conscientiously proactive.
The writer is professor of chemical engineering, BUET.
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