Diatribe against NGOs?
Manzoor Ahmed's defence of NGOs (Daily Star, March 8) against the attacks of the finance minister only adds insult to injury where the public is concerned. While the honourable minister's style of expressing his views against NGOs leaves much to be desired in terms of objectivity, the blanket defence offered by the author is no better. To claim that the business activities of well-established NGOs help to "set ethical and public interest standards in business" leaves one agape. Manzoor Ahmed goes on to explain what "ethical" and "public interest" standards mean. They mean paying sales and other taxes and not dodging laws and rules.
Is he serious? Was it not in the letters-to-the-editor columns of The Daily Star itself that we read that a big NGO was busy filling up lowlands to construct a new campus for a university? and that this was in violation of laws designed to protect us from the horrors of floods?
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