New Dhaka
I am an NRB living in the UK for the last 25 years. I did enjoy your article on a new capital for Bangladesh which I found very interesting. Bangladesh is not a poor country but extremely poorly managed. In the 1960's, Malaysia was poorer than Bangladesh and look where they are now and what they have achieved simply because over the last 40 years or so they have had visionary leadership and eradication of corruption. A corrupt society simply cannot prosper and that's a priority Bangladesh needs to sort out. Another big impediment to our development is the poor and low level of government tax collection as a proportion of GDP. In the UK, most people hand over one third of their income to government coffers because they have systems and checks in place so that people do not evade paying what is due upon them. Now how many people of working age in Bangladesh are willing to do that. In return people in the UK get first class infrastructure and free health care and education. People in Bangladesh complain about wanting better health care, free education and a working infrastructure but how many are willing to pay for it?
Bangladesh needs to make ALL its people inclusive in the tax collection system, so that even the less privileged contribute something to government coffers from their daily earnings. There is simply no other way. For example in the tax year 2009-10, the UK government intends to spend around 1150 billion US Dollars for a population of 61 million and I think Bangladesh government budget is by comparison 20 billion US Dollars for a population of 162 million and growing. The comparison is simply not worth the exercise.
We need to educate people that if they want the working infrastructure, free education, free health, than everyone has to contribute their fair share towards it.
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