BNP blamed for prices and shares chaos
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has just blamed the opposition BNP for the rise in prices of essential commodities and the crisis in the shares market. Her remarks are not only shockingly surprising but are also a clear hint that the government is looking for scapegoats to pin blame on over the issues. At a time when volumes of reports have come up, from the media, experts and others, over the reasons behind these sordid conditions, the government's propensity to hold everyone and everything but itself responsible for the mess is deeply worrying. It thinks there are syndicates working to undermine it. Generally syndicates are the preserve of the ruling classes. Assuming, of course, that the opposition too has its syndicates, what prevents the authorities from going after those syndicates rather than trying to score points through mere rhetoric?
Some very plausible explanations have been making the rounds among citizens regarding the elements and factors behind the price rise and stock market crash. A number of businessmen have openly pointed fingers at individuals they think are behind the market chaos. The government should have taken such criticisms seriously and neutralized the price jackers. But now for the prime minister to suggest that the BNP has been behind it all stretches credulity to the limit. Will she or her government now explain how such a conclusion has been arrived at? For its part, the ruling party has been unable to demonstrate the degree of governance people expected from it. It has clearly been floundering, to a point where public discontent over rising prices is beginning to be expressed in increasingly vocal manner.
Looking for scapegoats to explain away political and administrative failure has long been a bad legacy of successive governments in Bangladesh. Such a tendency has gone too far. We believe there is yet time for this government to step back, accept the reality and take corrective action. Governance can never be an offering of excuses for failure.
Comments