Austerity and wanton government expenditure
O. H. Kabir, 6, Hare Street, Wari, Dhaka-1205
Every new government which assumes power preaches austerity but as time passes it starts spending huge amount of money from the public exchequer on holding various functions, ceremonies, parties, seminars, workshops, pomp and show to earn ostentatious name, fame and publicity. Ours is a poor country and our per capita income is one of the lowest in the world. To call spade a spade we have a deficit budget every year but tactfully in theory and practice we camouflage with some new patchwork and heavy load of billions and billions of dollars loans from foreign countries and agencies and we try to project and prove that we have a balanced or surplus budget. We wonder is it necessary at all to hold highly expensive and luxurious Iftar parties one after another for a selected few of rich and affluent persons or diplomats at the cost of our public exchequer and at the cost of untold sufferings of our poor people? We are also astonished why ministries, government organisations, public sector corporations and NGOs hold seminars and workshops at five star hotels like Sonargaon and Sheraton? Who pays the bills for dinner, lunch and the hire charges for the gorgeous halls? What benefit do the common people get or what the common people learn from such seminars and workshops?
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