Elites from divergent arenas now united for gains

Elites from the country’s political, business and bureaucratic arenas, leaving their distinct identities, have become united to secure rent-seeking opportunities and other privileges, experts and economists said on Monday.

A large number of businessmen have taken to politics and are framing laws and rules as lawmakers while many MPs have also become businessmen, they said at a session on ‘political economy of development in Bangladesh’ of the two-day 5th SANEM Annual Economists’ Conference in Dhaka.

The South Asian Network on Economic Modeling in collaboration with the World Bank and the Asia Foundation organised the conference.

At the session, Centre for Policy Dialogue chairman Rehman Sobhan said that those who were in the board of directors of a company were taking part in framing of laws as MPs.

There are hardly any discussions about reforms in the banking sector and recovery of the defaulted loans as many of businessmen-turned politicians and politician-turned businessmen have borrowed from banks and become defaulters, he observed.

It was found that 60 per cent of the councillor candidates in the just-held elections to the two Dhaka city corporations mentioned their profession as business, he noted.

‘Now, there is no distinct professional identity of businessmen, politicians and retired bureaucrats as they have merged into one group and control everything,’ he said.

‘It is a very extraordinary situation prevailing in the country,’ he observed.

Representation from other sectors should increase in parliament to change the situation, he suggested.

Dhaka University economics professor MM Akash said that now there were no conflicts of interest among the actors from politics, the business and the bureaucracy, both from civil and military, as they work for same interests.

If political and business elites have equal strength, any anti-growth measures can be prevented, he further observed.

Elites from politics and the business are acting based on deals, not on rules, he said, adding that even they were not implementing the extraordinary rules such as repaying loans and reducing the interest rate.

SANEM executive director Selim Raihan said that the quality of institutions and governance was very poor in the country against the high economic growth, which was a development paradox.

He said that countries like Bangladesh were going through a deals-based system instead of a rules-based one.

Political elites find huge rent-seeking opportunities through large-scale public projects, he said.

CPD distinguished fellow Rounaq Jahan said that there was now no way to differentiate politics from business.

She said that a one-party-dominated political settlement could not bring about expected growth.

BRAC Institute of Governance and Development senior research fellow Mirza M Hassan said that political elites should control business elites but the current political elites did not have that capacity.

Shapan Adnan, professorial research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, said that distribution of income and assets should get focus instead of economic growth in the discussion of development.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net