Flood damage estimate controversy

I have followed this debate very closely, and I am somewhat bemused and also frustrated by the way the discourse has evolved. Now that the World Bank ADB Joint Mission has come out with its own damage estimate (to the tune of about Tk 13,000 crore), which is close to CPD's damage assessment, it is interesting to see how these various actors have reacted to the changed scenario.

It is also instructive to recollect the performance of the Food and Disaster Management Ministry which had trashed CPD's estimates at the time without having any clue about what it was talking about and caused some embarrassment to the government. The finance minister disassociated himself from both the Disaster Management Ministry and the UNDP, and the international auction of Bangladesh's misery in the name of Flash Flood Appeal. The UNDP Resident Representative, who castigated CPD as a 'downtown outfit, with people sitting in air-conditioned rooms', and boasted about the in-depth assessment exercise that had supposedly informed GOB/UNDP estimate, has found it convenient to keep mum this time around.

The same experts who expressed doubts about CPD's estimates are now telling us that "assessment of damage is not important, what is important is rehabilitation!

There is a lesson to learn from all of this, for all of us isn't it?