Following the national id card plan, a considerable imposition on the poor, the army chief revealed the government’s plans to henceforth provide VIP treatment for expatriates. As reported by New Age Oct. 23 front page http://www.newagebd.com/front.html#e:
The army chief informed the audience that the matter of giving national VIP treatment to expatriate Bangladeshis was now at the final stage and it would be announced soon.
‘You will get priority at police stations, in healthcare services… in buying property… you’ll enjoy quota and get priority in those cases,’ he said.
What is the rationale for this? Returning NRBs would no doubt bring great benefits for the society and the economy. But priority at police stations, for example, would be a blatant violation of Article 27 of the Constitution: Equality before law and equal protection of law. Article 26 states that “Laws inconsistent with fundamental rights are void.” This new promulgation violates the Constitution and will not stand up in the courts. NRBs should return to Bangladesh with an eye to doing good for the country, not cutting already overlong queues and hoarding already scarce benefits. Red tape, mismanagement in provision of government service etc. must be cut for the benefit of all citizens. The economy needs s jump start but not at the expense of the poor and the marginalized.
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October 23, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Saif
Thanks Leela! I think I agree with you. An important point to add is that this kind of “fast track” procedure without addressing the underlying issues of why there are delays will likely result in additional red-tape and corruption. “Urgent ispeshal sarbhice lagbo. NRB-der line-e dhukai dei apnar file-ta. Cha-nastar jonno kisu dilen na, bhai?”
I was going to do the constitutional “equal protection” angle somewhere along the line in my next post, but you beat me to it!
October 23, 2007 at 10:39 pm
fugstar
the id thing. i feel its less about bleeding the poor for one quarter of one day and more to do with establishing basic credible data for national organisation.
the vast, but still narrow ‘pro poor’ interest is not the only lens. I dont mean to sound like i eat babies.
if we did an environmental impact assesment of the behaviour of some NRBs im sure there would be a way to tax them!
special nrb treatment sucks, but we like creating classes, vvips, vips etc queue jumping is a higly developed craft in the society at large (I am rubbish at it) along with spatial class segregation from the sarkarpara in the ganj to the dizzy heights of dhaka.. yes.. this new arrangement seems jolly representative of how we are
just be more british(gosh) about queues and respectful of the publics time and states of literacy!
October 24, 2007 at 10:28 am
Leela
Saif,
No need to thank, you’re virtually carrying this blog by yourself these days!! The army chief is clearly pandering to the NRBs. He made this announcement in Boston. NRBs are not even voters yet and already we are to have discriminatory legislation in their favor! Imagine what can happen when they actually become a coherent interest group (this goes to Fugstar’s taxation point). I also read somewhere that some NRBs have been made into CIPs already. Perhaps violation of the equal protection clause is a pattern with this government. It’s certainly not turning out to be pro-poor as we had hoped.
Fugstar,
Thanks for making the broader point. All this VIP CIP nonsense is not only ridiculous but wasteful and harmful for the integrity of high office. Only those who are currently performing state functions at the highest levels should have a certain degree of protection and privilege. Remember Hasina’s request for protection for life for her sister because she is Mujib’s daughter? Granted Hasina was a PM so she should have some form of protection for life, but why her sister? What do we owe her as a nation? And why should high ranking government officials be treated as VIPs when they are no longer on official state duty? Why should their children get to use the state’s VVIP and VIP lounges at the airport? And then there are the much abused privileges for MPs from tax free cars to virtually free telephones. These privileges (forget about the abuse and wholesale corruption issue) need to be justified to us as voters because we pay for them. We need to prune off the non essential perks, make public service really about service rather than status, line cutting and traffic stopping. There should be NO CIPs. If Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are not given red carpet treatment by the US government then our captains of finance and industry can go without it too. Let them spend their own money and buy their protection and privilege. Well, they already do. No need to put extra icing on their sugared cakes.
I know that incentives need to be given to people who can make important contributions to our society. But if we make our government transparent and efficient, you know, the good stuff, FDI will flow in. If the fundamentals aren’t right perks are not going to bring in the real bulk of investments and on top of that we’ll have a new class of privileged people running around. Or maybe even not that. If law and order doesn’t improve drastically, NRBs should not feel good about the promise that the police are duty bound to hear their robbery complaints before poor people’s robbery complaints. NRBs should stand up and say amader ar privilege lagbena. We are privileged enough as it is. Make us ALL feel privileged to be citizens of this country.