“Why did things turn out this way? »: a white paper highlights the kleptocratic legacy

Highlighting that one of the most vaunted development stories of recent times – Bangladesh – has been built on shaky ground and deep-rooted systemic flaws, the draft White Paper on the State of Bangladesh’s Economy has stated that he had a lot to do with a number of openly committed offenses.

Asking rhetorically why things had happened this way, the White Paper Committee said the answers were simple.

“The short answer lies in unchecked corruption, abuse of public resources and abuse of discretion for a decade and a half,” he said.

Throughout the document, which was submitted today (December 1) to the interim government’s senior advisor, a theme was repeated: that of a corrupt nexus that permeated every inch of space.

What began as crony capitalism evolved into the rise of oligarchs, manifested in their grip on political governance and economic management, according to the newspaper.

“As a result, the government lost its political sovereignty. These oligarchs influenced and manipulated key facets of the economy to serve their vested interests, masked by an illusory development narrative supported by inflated and misleading data,” he said. -he declared.

It asserts that the alliance fostered a corruption-prone culture that preempted reforms and served to effectively suppress pluralistic voices and exclude stakeholders who could have contributed significantly to the nation’s progress.

“Indeed, faced with the upheaval of the student population, the head of government at the time failed to find a space for socio-political negotiation for a peaceful transition.”

The final draft states that the fundamental reason for such poor governance lies in a widespread lack of democratic accountability resulting from the fraudulent national elections of 2014, 2018 and 2024.

“Such elections, along with disempowering local elections, have given shape to a highly centralized authoritarian government.

“For its sustainability, the regime favored collusion between the politicians in power, some of the bureaucrats and certain business elites,” the newspaper said.

He said this “anti-development alliance” was not only eroding institutional integrity and democratic accountability, but also putting the brakes on all institutional and policy reforms in order to maximize its gains.

“One of the major consequences of these collusive behaviors has been a gradual erosion of the mandated role of the three critical organs of the state, namely the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. This process has further led to the paralysis of the non-state actors, i.e. the media, civil society and the private sector, through intimidation, self-censorship and co-optation,” according to the newspaper.