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International assistance & third world

30 August 2005, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Engr Md Ariful Islam Ramdebpur, Baghit, Tangail
30 August 2005, 18:00 PM
I think international financial assistance is a hindrance to the development of the third world countries. This is because most of the donors are nowadays interfering in the internal affairs of these third world countries this is obvious to everybody. Of course, there're various logical reasons to be in debt but if we try to avoid taking financial assistance, then, in my opinion, development will be possible through our own efforts. For that, firstly we've to uproot corruption from every sector. In this context, it is notable that the donors never help us to remove corruption either by financial assistance or through any other means. So, this is our own responsibility. If we are not serious about eliminating corruption, it will eat up our national resources.

The second step is to increase our internal assets. By removing tax collection barriers, we can increase these. We can employ our own engineers, technologists, scientists and other meritorious professionals that are going abroad every year (Brain drain).

We have resources but the foreign companies (Niko, for example.) are destroying these, while our super meritorious are engaged abroad and contributing to the economic development of other countries. That's unfortunate, to say the least.

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Then comes the point of administrative decentralisation. If we can reform the whole administration by decentralising and giving it financial freedom, then the whole process will be a uniform one.

We have to follow a sensible investment policy. By doing so we can increase foreign investment. Increasing foreign investment and export trade can be two major alternatives to international assistance.

Nowadays, the WB, and the IMF threaten us and impose difficult conditions to have financial assistance.

We had to lose in many ways (Adamjee Jute Mills, privatisation of various sectors, banks etc) due to their conditions.