Poor
negotiations on Padma Bridge embarrasses
Bangladesh
M. Serajul
Islam
I am surprised at the hue and cry from government circles after
the World Bank cancelled the Padma Bridge loan.
The government should in fact be happy with it because by its own claims
this would allow Malaysia to give us the loan at costs lesser than the World
Bank. The Minister of Communications who publicized this claim said that the
project would be started by February next year.
The Finance Minister led the government’s attack on the WB for the
cancellation. In parliament, he blamed the outgoing President of the WB Robert
Zoellick personally for the cancellation.
He said that the Government would write to the new President of the WB
Jim Young Kim detailing all the steps taken by the Government to answer the
WB’s concerns to revive the project.
The response from the Bank was faster than expected. Within
literally hours after the Finance Minister had spoken, the new President said
that his predecessor had kept him fully aware of the negotiations between the
Bangladesh Government and the Bank and that he backed the decision as an
“appropriate” one. He expressed support for the 3 crores people of Bangladesh
who would be affected by the cancellation but added that the Bank’s policy of
zero tolerance on corruption was not a matter for compromise.
One wonders what made the Finance Minister come up with the
statement against the Bank’s outgoing President. The speed with which the new
President reacted left no doubt that the Finance Minister’s claim must have
irked him and his colleagues. Perhaps the Finance Minister was misled into
thinking that institutions and governments abroad work the same way as in
Bangladesh where the culture is for a new administration to throw overboard all
the decisions of the outgoing one based on its civilized culture for institutional
behaviour. Even if the Finance Minister
had irrefutable intelligence that the former President had acted out of grudge,
he should not have made the statement on it in parliament. The reaction of the
new President left little doubt that his intelligence source, if he had any,
was highly flawed. By his statement
against the outgoing President, he has lowered his own credibility and that of
the government with the WB.
The way the government negotiated with the WB on the Padma Bridge
since the initial postponement many months ago has been anything but
professional; in fact in made a fiasco in dealing with the WB on the Padma
Bridge. The former Minister of Communications treated the WB accusation against
him as a joke. He wrote a letter to the ACC to investigate him so that he
could, with an ACC certificate, answer WB on charges against him. By doing so,
he acted like the proverbial intruder in the temple who, when he heard someone
asking to know who was in the temple, responded by saying that he had not eaten
the bananas. In fact, if the government had taken the WB’s first contact with
the government on its concerns over funding seriously and negotiated
professionally, the matter could have been resolved behind the scene. The
government eventually changed the Minister but in a manner that failed to give
it any advantage in resolving the conflict.
The new Communications Minister was more interested in pleasing
the Prime Minister who was angry and upset with the WB for postponing the
funding for a project that is politically of the highest significance to the
ruling party. Her anger was enhanced by the fact that individuals named by the
WB are close to her. The new Minister gave the country false hopes a number of
times on dates when t the PB project would start with Malaysian funds. He
promised the country that Malaysian funding would be cheaper! The Minister had
to be alerted that Bangladesh would first have to cancel the agreement with WB
to sign a new contract with the Malaysians!
Nevertheless, in the end, it is this government’s style of
negotiations that has been responsible for the PB fiasco. It is this style that
has landed Bangladesh at serious odds with the United States. It is the same
style that has now landed it with serious problem with the WB. In this style,
the underlying belief is that the government led by Sheikh Hasina cannot make
mistakes. It is time that those advising the Prime Minister tell her without
fear that sometimes she could be wrong, that to err is human and that she would be better off listening to
them, sometimes. Unfortunately, this did not happen when the WB postponed the
loan that made the Prime Minister angry.
The Ministers and party leaders became angrier instead of calming
the anger of the Prime Minister and advising her to negotiate with the WB to
resolve its concerns. They forgot the
stature of the WB and the fact that so far it has contributed over US$ 16
billion for development of Bangladesh with over US$ 4 billion in the pipeline.
They accused the WB of corruption and absolved those named by the WB of the
charges. Simultaneously, they said that
the country would build the PB from domestic sources after the Prime Minister
had hinted at that; that Malaysia would fund it; and even China was named as a
possible source. Clearly, they were not sure what would make the Prime Minister
happy and went about contradicting one another on where funds would come for
the PB.
The WB cancellation of PB loan put the government in an
embarrassing situation. International
media reported widely that the cancellation would affect adversely the flow of
much needed foreign investment. The BNP took advantage of the media reports and
put its own negative spin on the issue. All these made the Prime Minister
angrier and more upset than she was with the postponement that encouraged her
Ministers and senior political leaders to go overboard in attacking the WB. One
Minister said that the WB action and the recent Human Rights Watch’s critical
report on human rights in Bangladesh are all a part of US conspiracy instigated
by Dr. Yunus! Another revived memory of 1971 to highlight USA’s dislike for
Bangladesh!!
When the Prime Minister “finally” declared that her government
would build the PB from domestic resources and not go to WB for a review, the
Ministers and political leaders praised her decision like she had led the
country to a big victory. No one cared to answer what would happen to the
cheaper Malaysian proposal and future funding from WB. The ministers/leaders
side tracked more important issues. First, whether it is practical for this
government at its fag end to take such an important mega project on its hands.
Second, what would be the impact of such a huge sum of money being diverted
from critical areas of development upon the economy and the country? Finally,
whether the Prime Minister can sanction/divert such a huge amount by an
executive decision when only recently, the parliament adopted the 2012-2013
budget without any mention of the PB.
At the time of filing this piece, the Finance Minister has again
said that the government would go to WB after review with its development
partners a day after the Prime Minister announced that the government would not
do so! In between its confused reactions
whether to go to WB or not, the Government has failed to establish its case
that the Bank has been unfair or that the WB itself is not above corruption. It
also failed to address to the alleged payment of US$ 35 million by Canadian
engineering firm SNC Lavalin to officials of the Bangladesh Communications
Ministry for securing lucrative contracts from the WB that is the basis of WB’s
concerns. The case is being tried currently
in a Canadian court with clear evidence to prove the charges.
Clearly, the government has lost its direction over the PB having
badly messed up its negotiations with the WB. A senior leader close to the
Prime Minister suggested that the Chaatra League should raise money for the
bridge underscoring the extent to which confusion has taken hold of the
government over the proposed Padma Bridge.
The writer is a former
Ambassador to Japan
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