Neo-liberal policies include privatisation (selling off of public properties to private interests), liberalisation (opening up domestic markets to allow additional local and foreign companies to do business), and withdrawing government subsidies from agriculture and other social services such as healthcare and education. The IMF and WB began to prescribe these policies to developing countries like Bangladesh in the 1970s as preconditions for receiving loans from them. They either coax or coerce poor countries into adopting such policies. They suggest that the implementation of such policies would help the countries attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) which in turn would create jobs and bring economic prosperity.

In recent years Bangladesh has become an ideal place for international money lenders such as the IMF and WB. The government has taken many initiatives to appease them rather than looking after the interests of its citizens. Under their prescription, the country has privatised, dismantled or shut down many public industries. Among all the industries, the closure of Adamjee Jute Mill, one of the biggest of its kind, was a big blow to a lot of people. The mill was closed because it became a losing concern. Under the influence of our development partners such as the WB, our government did a heroic job by shooting the so-called white elephant. The myopia of our policymakers or their solicitousness to the IMF and WB did not allow them to foresee the long term effects of doing so.

Adamjee became a losing concern because every government in the last few decades harboured corrupt elements there to strengthen its political base, failed to upgrade the machineries, and allowed it to get sick. Finally the BNP government dismantled it by saying that the state does not have money to upgrade it. It cut off the head because the headache removers seemed too expensive!

We have already paid a price for doing this and will continue to do so. Adamjee provided bread and butter to around 30,000 workers and their families. Roughly around 200,000 people were dependent on it. The government dismantled it, driving these people into the ranks of the unemployed, underemployed, and hungry. The government became environmentally conscious by banning the use of plastic bags, but shut down the biggest source of the alternative -- jute bags.

Very recently the government has increased the oil price, leading to price hikes of other essentials following the suggestions of the donors (read money lenders, because nobody donates money. Everyone -- a country or institution -- provides money to receive something in return.). Examples are rife in showing how our economy has been becoming more and more dependent on the IMF and WB.

Christian Aid disclosed a study report prepared by a global network of economists -- Tax Justice Network -- at the review meeting of MDGs at the UN in the second week of this month. The report titled "Tax Us If You Can" explains how neo-liberal policies promoted by the IMF and WB strip poor people in Third World countries of their clothes and fleece them with taxes. Some participants from poor countries said it was not a report but an atom bomb which rocked the UN.

According to Christian Aid, multinational corporations dodge developing countries to the tune of $500 billion in tax every year which is "more than six times the current global aid budget." It happens because the IMF and WB have forced developing countries to lower corporate taxes to attract FDI and eliminate import taxes to liberalise trade. After losing revenues from these two vital sources, governments in poor countries tax people by imposing value added tax (VAT) and seek foreign aid as well as debt relief for survival. Increases in the amount and areas of VAT in developing countries in recent years echo this.

Following the IMF and WB, developing countries compete with each other in offering tax holidays to foreign companies to attract FDI. But they never assess the fruitfulness of the FDI centred model of development. A 2004 report by global consulting firm McKinsey demonstrates how ineffective this model is. Conducting research on FDI flows to Brazil, China, India, and Mexico, it concludes that while FDI brings significant benefits such as employment and technology to recipient countries, it takes away much more from the countries. This becomes clear when the incentives such as tax holidays and free or subsidised land or other benefits given to foreign companies are measured.

Even a June 2005 IMF working paper reveals that poor countries cannot recover the money they lose in trade taxes because of trade liberalisation. It estimates that poor countries can hardly recover 30 cents through other forms of taxation for every dollar they lose by liberalising trade tariffs.

The poverty of neo-liberal policies has been sorely exposed in Latin America. Look at Bolivia. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries of the world in spite of having huge reserves of oil and gas. Under US and IMF pressure, Bolivian government began to privatise everything from drinking water to oil and gas companies in the 1990s. Bolivia privatised its gas sector in 1996 with a view to attracting foreign investment in the sector. Many multinational gas and oil companies came to Bolivia and gas and oil production increased tremendously. Multinational corporations like British Gas and British Petroleum enjoyed hefty profits from the Bolivian gas sector, but Bolivia's source of non-renewable energy depleted dramatically and oil as well as gas went beyond the reach of common Bolivians.

Recently Bolivians have woken up. They woke up to take their government and the IMF to task. In May and June this year, a loose coalition of miners, farmers, urban political activists, and indigenous women seized the capital, demanding the nationalisation of all privatised industries. They overthrew the government of President Mesa and declared Bolivia closed to both IMF and WB.

Bolivians are not alone. In the last few years many similar uprisings took place across Latin America. Latin Americans started moving leftward since the late 1990s, rejecting US hegemony and the suggestions of the IMF and WB. Left-leaning political leaders got elected in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela, promising alternatives to the tyranny of neo-liberal policies.

While Latin Americans have started discarding the policies of privatisation and liberalisation, our government has started adopting them. Our government has vowed to do everything to create a free market in Bangladesh the way the IMF and WB want. It has privatised many public industries and is in the process of doing more. It hesitates to provide enough subsidies to our farmers and sufficient financial support to public education and healthcare. It offers tax holidays to foreign companies but attempts to bring common people under the purview of a VAT regime.

If the government continues to adhere to IMF and WB recommended policies, is the vision of a mass of hungry and poor people seizing the capital like Bolivians for food, education, shelter, and healthcare in the near future out of the question?

The writer is a faculty (on leave) at the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Dhaka and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Communication at Simon Fraser University, Canada.