Editorial
Parliamentary waste recalled
TIB's report revealing
At a recently held press briefing a senior TIB researcher revealed that as much as Tk. 20 crore went down the drain because of quorum crisis in the recently dissolved parliament. On top of it while the parliament failed to discuss and debate such key issues of vital national concern like growing corruption, power crisis and terrorism the members were engaged in playing party politics and indulging in all kinds of unscheduled discussions that included raising of salaries and allowances and other benefits for themselves. So acute was the situation that during the five-year tenure of the past regime only 9 sessions of the parliament were held on time. Besides out of a total of 373 working days the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition did show up at the parliament for 128 and 328 days respectively. It was also pointed out that the standing committees on as many as six ministries failed to submit their recommendations on various audit objections worth about Tk.13,154 crore. Apparently a mere Tk 63.75 crore was subsequently realised from that staggering amount. We are fully in agreement with the various recommendations put forward by TIB aimed at streamlining the anomalies standing in the way of effective functioning of our parliament like reducing the total number of days from 90 to 20 for cancellation of membership due to absenteeism from working sessions of the parliament. We also endorse the recommendation for increasing the total duration of the sessions of parliament to be productive enough. The suggestion for appointing a Deputy Speaker from the Opposition bench also deserves serious consideration. We are now looking forward to a free and fair election. But election by itself cannot guarantee fully functional parliament unless the quality of members in it are competent and honest to be able to represent their constituencies effectively. So, parliamentary reform should form a part of the reform agenda we are addressing for strengthening the institutions of democracy.
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