Bangladesh PM vows to end poverty by 2020

Dhaka: Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has said corruption has to be curbed if poverty is to be prevented.

She stressed a strong democratic system to ease poverty in Bangladesh.“Democracy is the tool to alleviate poverty,” she said on Saturday at a much-hyped “all-party” programme to launch anti-poverty campaign in the country.

PM Sheikh Hasina addressing the rally/ Photo credit: Bangladesh News 24

“We need to move forward. For this, poverty has to be eradicated. Poverty will not be reduced if the social security net is not widened. Our fight is to prevent poverty for which we're doing politics and the thing we need most is national consensus,” the PM said.

She said the Anticorruption Commission will be allowed to work independently. "We want to see the country free from poverty. We want to provide what the constitution has said about the fundamental rights for the people.”

Opposition absent

The programme marking the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty started without opposition Chief Khaleda Zia who backed out at the last moment.

The prime minister said: “Assets have limits. So when one loots, the other part becomes poor. But we do not want to see that. We want to ensure equal distribution of wealth and rights.”

Hasina asked all to unite beyond political ideologies and said, “Let's save lives of the poor people of our country and ensure a better living for them.”

The prime minister said Bangladesh had become a food-surplus country in her previous stint in office.

But the BNP-led alliance government made the country a food-deficit one again as they thought they would have more aid if there was deficit.

She also stated the initiatives taken by her government to prevent poverty from the country.

Hasina said another 1.20 crore people slipped into poverty in the seven years since her last administration left office - two years of the caretaker administration and five of the BNP- led government.

“The number of the poor rose 20% during this time when their number was supposed to drop in the country.”

Hasina sniped at Khaleda for skipping the anti-poverty programme.  “Perhaps, she did not come finding the agenda of this conference being ‘National consensus will prevent poverty’”

Corruption

Former Prime Minister Khaleda is facing trial on charges of embezzling Tk two crore from the Zia Orphanage Trust that allegedly existed only on paper.

“After the end of our tenure in 2001, some 25,000 of our leaders and supporters faced tortures by the then ruling party,” Hasina said.

“And we are doing enough to stop repetition of such incidents.  We are trying to maintain the law and order, and as we said in our election pledge we will try everyone for violation of law, whatever their identity.”

“The looted wealth will be recovered and the corrupt will be tried. They can not escape whatever the party identity may be. I am happy that the opposition members of parliament attend the standing committee meetings. They also join the teams going abroad to join international events."

She said, “We want to establish the country as a developed one by 2020 as the succeeding year is the Golden Jubilee of our independence in 2021. We want to build a modern, science and technology-based Bangladesh, a digital one, not only for the urban areas. We'll ensure technology for the rural areas.”

“We have always been facing some problems after assuming office. There was a terrible incident after two months (BDR mutiny) which we solved. We also faced (cyclone) Aila.”

The government has also allotted Tk 4,000 crore as stimulus package for the export-oriented industries.

Speaker Abdul Hamid earlier in his speech said he was hurt that Khaleda had not taken the opportunity to share the stage with Hasina to launch anti-poverty call.

He administered oath marking the day that took place altogether at 64 districts and six places of the capital.

Finance minister A M A Muhith, chief whip Abdus Shahid and member secretary of All-Party Parliamentary Group Shishir Kumar Shil and United Nation's Millennium Campaign director Salil Shetty were also present.

Hamid hoped to see the two leaders together sometime in the future. "There is no alternative to national consensus," the speaker said.

Shetty said: "From the UN campaign for poverty side we’ve converted this day from seminars and speeches to a day which mobilises millions of ordinary people in the grassroots level in the programme "Stand up and take action against poverty, stand up and take action for the MDGs.

“I am really pleased the parliament has taken the leadership to organise the event and is supporting this initiative. This is the body which can ensure execution of the programme.”

"We've seen some big achievements, 40 million more children are now at schools, 800 million people have come out of poverty, 2 million lives of children have been saved," the UN official said.

Bangladesh has made a commendable progress in many areas of the MDGs and it has been a high performer in comparison with many countries of the South Asia, Shetty said.

It has made considerable headway in the fields of child mortality, action against malaria, sending children to schools and political challenges, he said.