An Adviser to the PM exposes darkness ahead

One of the super advisers to the prime minister on energy, Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, has at last felt compelled to come out with the truth about the gloomy picture of the country’s economy. Pointing at the fast fall of the country’s foreign reserves, the energy adviser said that use of electricity at day time might be stopped, if necessary. This warning is real.

The adviser also said the government was not bringing LNG at this moment and was unsure if it could import LNG in the near future. The only option then will be to become ‘economical’ in electricity use, which, according to him, could be stopping daytime electricity altogether.

When the country was being plundered, the energy adviser along with other super advisers preferred to live with the lies and glorified the success of the government in all aspects. Now we find there is disaster everywhere. Economically we are now nearly bankrupt. The mega projects for mega corruption had no difficulty in exhausting the foreign reserve.

The police were used extensively to terrorise those who disagreed with the government and to make life unsafe for the people as a whole.

It is because of the few super advisers that the country is now in great peril. The energy adviser said after liberation war, the nation started with nothing, but he did not say anything about destruction of democracy in the country to facilitate autocracy of no accountability. But the nation is not interested to hear about success of the liberation war from those who left for India not under Bangabandhu’s instruction and worked to efface our people’s dream for democracy as liberation.

These bureaucrats used the prime minister to make the country a hub of corruption and mismanagement. Truth is exposed and not necessary to be told. The deprivation of the people has gone beyond the limit of tolerance. They have come out on the streets to show anger and desperation.

According to energy adviser’s own words, in the country, there is a demand of 5-6,000 megawatts of electricity to run the air-conditioner and it would be possible to save 2-3,000 megawatts of electricity if air-conditioning is kept off. In the capital, people live in darkness even during the daytime without electricity, as sunlight does not enter most houses, flats and apartments in very closely-constructed, tall buildings. Household refrigerators will remain stopped, and there will be no light in the offices where people work during daytime.

The country’s industrial and agricultural production sectors will be heavily hurt and the super adviser has offered no hope.  

The last time the government informed people that the forex reserves at the central bank stood at $ 36.8 billion. The adviser’s warning also suggests that the actual size of reserves must be smaller than what the government said about the size of reserves at different times, as critics always pointed out.

If the prime minister’s warning of a ‘famine’ is taken into account, time is not far that Bangladesh will soon be facing more miseries and more hunger. The government should know that they cannot be rescued by lies any more.

The election robbery for having an anti-people government is the blueprint that came from outside which we have to pretend we do not know about. The game is dangerous. There has to be now a government of talent and competence to make the country ready for democratic government.

To push the country towards darkness will have terrible consequences.