Staff Correspondent:

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Saturday said good governance is yet to come in the country, with no improvement being seen in the police.

He made the comment referring to a businessman who complained that he had to pay more bribes now to get things done.

“If you had to pay Tk 1 lakh in bribes previously, now it’s Tk 5 lakh,” he said while talking at the launch of a book titled “Economy, Governance, and Power: A Portrait of Everyday Life”, written by economist Hossain Zillur Rahman, also a former adviser to the caretaker government.

Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed also attended the event held at the CIRDAP in Dhaka.

Fakhrul said reforms cannot be implemented overnight and that they take time.

He added that democratic practices should not be delayed for the sake of reforms, and that reforms should not be imposed forcefully.

“We must move swiftly towards a democratic process. Reforms must be made by people’s representatives elected through a democratic process,” he added.

Salehuddin said the interim government inherited an economy that had been looted, with 80 percent of loans given by some banks turning into bad loans.

“Institutions were so badly hampered that there are hardly any good ones left. The processes have been destroyed, but the same people remain in place. The individuals themselves haven’t changed,” he said.

“It is not possible to run the administration by removing all of them. So, we have to get work done through a mix of encouragement and strictness,” he added.

Salehuddin said ensuring good governance is very difficult under the current system, as the prime minister and members of parliament lack a proper system of checks and balances.

“Without reforms here, no matter how many reforms we talk about, it won’t make any difference. Reforms are also needed within political parties,” he said.

He said that the interim government wants to initiate reforms, which political parties will have to complete.