‘Govt trying to sell public-owned jute mills to pvt sector’

The government is conspiring to sell the public-owned jute mills to the private sector, Zonayed Saki told a protest rally yesterday.

The chief coordinator of left-leaning political party Gonosamhati Andolon made the remark at the demonstration organised by the Left Democratic Alliance (LDA) in front of the Jatiya Press Club, protesting the government's decision to shut down all state-run jute mills.

Chaired by Bazlur Rashid Firoz, central leaders of left wing political parties spoke at the protest rally.

"At first, the government had said the jute mills would be reopened through public-private partnership; now they are saying the jute mills will be leased to industrialists. Actually, the government is conspiring to sell the public-owned jute mills to the private sector," Saki added.

Sajjad Jahir Chandan, assistant secretary general of Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), said, "While hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh have already been unemployed by Covid-19 pandemic, the 'fascist' Awami League government has made 51,000 jute mill workers unemployed by shutting down the jute mills. Some four crore people of the country who are directly or indirectly involved with jute industry will be affected by this decision. The government must reopen the jute mills under state-ownership within September."

Moshrefa Mishu, noted garment workers' leader and general secretary of Ganatantrik Biplobi Party, said, "According to the government, the mills were incurring heavy losses. The reasons behind the loss were unrestrained corruption of mill authorities and age-old machineries. The government did not take any step against the corrupt officials or to modernise the equipment. Instead, they sacked thousands of workers."

The protesters later marched towards the ministry of jute and textiles, where they were stopped by police. The rally ended there, with the announcement that the prime minister's office would be 'besieged' on October 5 with the same demand.

The government closed all 25 jute mills run by Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) on July 1, laying off 24,886 permanent and 32,000 substitute or temporary workers. Although the minister for jute and textiles had initially said the jute mills would be reopened through public-private partnership or government-to-government agreement or through lease process, BJMC and ministry officials have recently said they are more interested to lease out the mills to the private sector for short term.