Let me tell you about a real incident at the beginning of this write up. Recently, a young businessman phoned me, pretending to be a close friend of mine. Although he is under thirty, his business has been around for 10 years. He runs business in the technology sector with four friends. He is doing business with domestic and foreign government and private institutions with good reputation and has already created an enviable position in the eyes of wealthy and famous ones. As soon as I asked him how the business is going on recently, the voice on the other end of the telephone seemed to tremble for a moment. His excitement and success story stumbled. He sighed and said, “What you have said so far is a story of the past. The world is not going well at present. The company built with several hundred technologists can get close at any time.”
The sadness in the young man's voice also hurt me as I don’t want to annoy you by telling you about the status of my own business. However, the Covid-19 after global situation and the political instability of the country have broken the backbone of many small and big businessmen. Due to the bankruptcy of the banks, the financial monster and the corrupt syndicate of the central bank, the blood flow of the country's top businessmen has stopped. The germ of cancer-like recession has spread in their veins in such a way that if emergency medical care is not given, that is, if efforts are not made to ‘save lives by taking them to the ICU,’ not a single group of companies known as the corporate house of the entire Bangladesh will survive.
Due to my long-standing relationship with the country's business, politics and intellectual society and my knowledge about the government system, I get fresh news about country's current incidents every day. Due to my past journalism career, information is a very important element for me and my efforts to collect it are continuous. For this reason, I asked the young man to find out the reason for the disaster of his business. He frankly said that in the past, in government offices, if you paid a bribe of 5 to 7 percent, you would get a job. But now it has increased to 25 percent. The bribe money is to be given in advance. But there is no guarantee of getting payment of the bill. In the IT sector, it is not possible to pay a bribe of 10 percent, let alone at such a high rate. As a result, no work is done.
When I asked the reason for the high rate of bribery and why no one is procuring work by paying bribes, the young man said that after the fall of the previous government, new corrupt people were invited to some lucrative positions through tenders. As a result, those who got the chair by competing with each other and getting the chair by cheating the recruitment process, they increased the bribe rate to recover the investment. Although the past record of the chair, work, bribe transactions and business of the bribe takers are not known, the bribe givers concerned have a long-term practical experience. Hence, they are not falling into the trap of the new bribe takers. As a result, there has been stagnation in the entire work, which has not been seen before.
While talking to the young man, I tried to remember how many projects were passed by the ECNEC in the last six months. How much money was spent by the ADB and how much was cut off. Has there been any private domestic or foreign investment in the last six months. Whether capital machinery has been imported or how much revenue has been collected from the Chattogram Custom House or Benapole Land Port? To the best of my knowledge, the depressing situation prevailing in the above sectors has never happened before in independent Bangladesh. So how is it going, how are the government's daily expenses and monthly annual liabilities being met? Thinking about how the state's domestic and foreign liabilities are being met, any economist's heart would stop beating if he were not a foreign broker and a person of treasonous nature.
I asked the young man, apart from government work, what is the news of the private sector jobs you used to work in? He replied by mentioning some popular apps and said that his business with the country's top-notch newspapers, television and corporate houses has come to naught. No one is buying their apps again. One company has only paid the dues, while the rest are unable to pay. So, it is not possible to meet 25 percent of the monthly expenses with the business they had with foreign clients, especially the income generated through outsourcing, YouTube and other social platforms.
They have exhausted their entire life savings in the last six-seven months to meet the liabilities. Now they have decided to close the company and move to Malaysia or Singapore or Dubai to serve foreign clients. I was very surprised and asked him the reason for leaving the country. He said with sadness that he would have to leave his current office and rent a smaller office, lay off 95 percent of the office staff. Residential and personal expenses would have to be reduced by at least half. In the last 10 years, while moving from zero to the top, the changes he had made in his habits, daily lifestyle, beliefs, tastes, social life and eating habits, which had seemed like a business investment to him for so long, have now become a liability for him that he cannot bear any longer. Again, the poverty that he has to fight for his life in the changed circumstances is not possible in the context of Dhaka. In recent times, a kind of inferiority complex has developed within him. When he was running everything successfully, it seemed like everyone was following him. He thought he had intelligence and ability, and because of that attitude, an unknown force in his body motivated him to work, kept his mind cheerful and opened his world of thoughts. As a result, he used to find possibilities even in the impossible. But now everything has become a boomerang for him.
In the above situation, he seems to be feeling that people around him have sensed the financial crisis he is in. His subordinates and employees do not seem to consider him as important ones as before. In such a situation, it seems reasonable for him to emigrate. Secondly, since 100% of his income is now coming from abroad and a lack of trust about the country's banking system in him, especially the bank in which he has an account, so if any transaction is tampered with or if any problem occurs in the bank, his last resort will be lost.
Listening to the young man's words, I remembered a real incident about the poor condition of the country's banking system, especially the government banks, and how business is being destroyed by government offices and courts. If you tell me about this, you will understand what is actually happening in country's banks, government offices, courts, etc. and how the prominence of red tape in files is destroying the economy. Let's say the person I will tell you about today is Raihan Chowdhury. He has been in business for 40 years and has created an image that is rare in Bangladesh through honesty, hard work and success. So, a year ago, that gentleman suddenly received a call from his bank that a letter had come from a certain government office, freezing all your bank accounts.
Hearing to the bank manager, the gentleman seemed like struck by lightning. He went to the bank and informed that due to the audit objection of a company that had been closed 10 years ago, a government office had secretly taken a unilateral decision and was rushing to freeze the bank account to collect the huge fine. The elderly gentleman rushed to that government office with his sick condition. After seeing the files, the new boss said, “Everything is fine, so why did the previous boss do this? And since the previous boss did it, you have to appeal.” The gentleman appealed to a higher government office. They said, “The deadline for appeal has passed. So you have to go to the High Court to waive the time limit.”
The gentleman went to the High Court. It was accepted for hearing but the way the serial was read, there was doubt whether the hearing will be held in the next six-seven months or not.
The said gentleman again went to the concerned government office. He asked the new big boss, “Did you ask to freeze all my bank accounts?” The gentleman said, “No. We only asked to freeze the bank where the accused company has its account.” The gentleman sighed and said, “The bank manager has frozen all my personal and other company accounts out of fear of you. Can you please call the manager and tell him the truth?” The big boss frowned and said this is a matter between you and that bank manager. If you don't have any problems in any other bank, then you can't blame us. And why should we ask to freeze your other accounts; only the court can do that. So if the bank manager doesn't listen, then go to court.
The gentleman returned to the bank. He tried to convince the manager a lot, citing his relationship with the concerned branch for 30 to 35 years. After hearing everything, the manager smiled and said, “Wait a bit. Let's see what can be done.” The gentleman returned disappointed and in the meantime, a year had passed. Business was in shambles, and the gentleman was praying to God in the morning and in the evening so that he could die comfortably.
The writer is a former Member of Parliament and Political Analyst
