Platform to be floated next month to 'monitor' WB, IMF activities

A platform will be launched next month in Dhaka to 'monitor' suggestions and projects of the World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund), a dialogue was told yesterday.
The proposed platform will examine the two multilateral donor agencies' activities in the last 34 years in Bangladesh, economist Professor Anu Mohammad said.
"The platform will also hold public tribunals to try the World Bank and IMF for their wrong suggestions," added Anu Mohammad.
A similar platform was launched in India last month, he said, adding that there have been many such organisations comprising affected people, activists, and academicians in other parts of the world.
VOICE, an initiative for research and development, organised the dialogue titled 'How Bank and Fund Stand Against People: Breaking the Cycle of Neo-liberal Hegemony' at the National Press Club in the capital.
Piash Karim of the Department of Economics and Social Sciences of BRAC University said the WB and IMF have provided the country with many suggestions regarding jute and sugar industries and the new platform will assess the impacts of the suggestions.
Speakers at the dialogue also criticised different suggestions including privatisation and market liberalisation of the financial institutions.
They said had Bangladesh exported its gas at the suggestions of the WB, the country would have faced acute energy crisis.
They also said implementing the suggestions of the donor agencies the country failed to utilise its full development potentials.
Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director of VOICE, urged the government not to pay heed to all the suggestions of the WB and IMF.