"As I See It" column
The Independent
November 17, 2012
M.
Serajul Islam
Right
to information about what the government does is now accepted as a right of a citizen
worldwide. For the media whose duty it is to find out what the government does
and write about it or report on it on a continuous basis, the right to
information is not just a basic right but a very important one; its
professional bed and butter. Ultimately the public is the sovereign in a
democratic state and it is the media that is one of the watchdogs on its behalf
to help it exercise that sovereign right and restrain the government from
becoming arbitrary or dictatorial. In a country such as Bangladesh where the
mainstream parties have rendered the main watchdog of the people namely the
parliament innocuous, the media’s role is a bigger one for assuring citizen’s
right to information about government and governance.
In
a way, Bangladesh gives the façade of the most democratic government in the
world when it comes to the government’s eagerness to give information to the
media Thanks to the 25 plus private TV
channels and the unbelievably large number of daily newspapers, Dhaka is
flooded by a over subscription of media people pursuing the government for
information.
The
government represented by the Ministers is equally game to talk to the media
and freely, no doubt giving the impression to an outsider that the country is a
light of democracy and a haven for the media in pursuit of information as a
watchdog for the people. Under this government that has helped achieve an
explosion of the private TV channels; the propensity of the Ministers to talk
to the media however has crossed all limits and has become counterproductive.
Like movie stars, our Ministers are always prepared to talk to the media as if
they are running the government under media glare. Like the film stars, they
perhaps feel if they have no media exposure, they have no political career.
Unfortunately,
many of them in their over enthusiasm are committing gaffes galore that are now
raising serious questions about the government’s credibility. Therefore, the
question to ask now is whether this interaction of the Ministers with the media
is helping the citizen’s right to information or the government in running the
country in a transparent and democratic way. There are serious doubts that either
is being achieved. Take for instance the first case, whether the free
interaction of the ministers with the media is in anyway helping the people’s
right to information. In recent times, people of the country have scratched
their heads for information relating to the exchanges between the Government and
the World Bank on the issue of the Padma Bridge.
We
have a Minister of Finance who among the Ministers is the most media friendly.
Yet the media was unsuccessful to get from him any information about the
letters the World Bank had written to him and his Ministry on the Padma Bridge.
The World Bank through its Dhaka Office had stated in the media very clearly about
its sacrosanct policy of not releasing any information to the media about
exchanges between it and a sovereign country on ground of confidentiality. The
Bank had nevertheless said if the Bangladesh Government wished, it could go
ahead and release the letters in the media.
The
Finance Minister ignored the Bank’s suggestion and the media was unable to
encourage him to release the letters for information of the public. The same Minister however never failed in the
past to talk on other issues in which the public was interested and also on
issues that the public felt would have been better for the Minister and the
Government if he had kept to himself. His comments on the share market were
ones that did not make him very popular with the public; it did not also help
the Government either in terms of its popularity or credibility.
The
Minister’s latest over indulgence with the media, particularly the electronic
media has now landed him and the government with a gaffe of very serious nature
and an extremely embarrassing one. The Minister in one of his regular and
instant media appearances under glare of the TV cameras was heard saying: “Prof Amartya said that so many good things
are happening in this country but they are not projected anywhere in the world
only because of Prof Yunus." When a surprised media asked him how an
individual could carry out such a successful campaign on an international
platform against his own country, the Minister was quick to respond that Dr.
Yunus has“wonderful publicity machinery!”
Millions
who watched the Minister on TV making the statement were bewildered and confounded.
Many thought that even if Dr. Sen made the comment, why on earth would the
Minister embarrass him in public? Dr. Amartya Sen however put the record
straight. In a written statement to a leading English Daily of Dhaka, he expressed
astonishment that “the alleged utterance is not close to anything I told Muhit
when we met briefly at the VIP lounge in the Bangkok Airport last month.” He went on to state : “Rather, I was pointing
to the fact that the treatment of Yunus -- and its interpretation in the
outside world -- have been strongly inhibiting factors working against the
justified acclaim that Bangladesh's stellar achievements could otherwise be
expected to get in the world.”
In
a strange twist to the tale thereafter, the Finance Minister told the media
that “Amartya Sen
did not make any such comment about Prof Yunus. It was my comment."
The English Daily to which Dr. Sen sent his
statement quickly put on the internet the video clipping of the Finance
Minister telling TV journalists what he later denied! Unfortunately, the
Minister’s denial was also ill advised because Dr. Sen had made a very positive
comment to him about Dr. Yunus that he misrepresented that many in the country
and outside will interpret as part of the government’s policy to humiliate Dr.
Yunus. The incident has seriously dented the Minister’s standing. It also
flagged a serious problem of this government that it refuses to acknowledge. It
allowed its Ministers a free hand to talk to the media from the very first day
it came to power. As a consequence, there is perhaps not one Minister who has
not embarrassed himself/herself and the government in the process.
The
Finance Minister’s latest gaffe has unequivocally highlighted the grave dangers
of appearing before the media unprepared. It serves nobody’s interests. In this
instance as in many instances before, our Minister’s have committed gaffes in
the media because they appeared before it unprepared and where there was no
need for them even to appear. Such indulgence of Ministers with the media has
also not served the interests of the people who are not interested in the
Ministers speaking in the media just for the sake of speaking. It is time therefore for the Government to
draw a line and send out instructions to the Ministers that they should refrain
from appearing unprepared before the media. In the face of the Government’s
silence, it was an ex-Minister of the ruling party who appeared in the media
and asked the Finance Minister to shut up which again was a strange example of
governance!
It
is high time to revert to the old system when Ministers spoke to the media
through a Spokesman and appeared
personally before it only when the issue demanded his/her presence and with due
preparation. Such is the system everywhere. It is in Bangladesh only that the
Ministers interact with the media the way they do and end up embarrassing
themselves, the government and in case of the Finance Minister’s strange gaffe
over Dr. Sen, the country as well. Not too long ago, the Finance Minister faced
censure in a Cabinet meeting from two of his senior colleagues over his
indulgence with the media that led him to threaten to resign. A serious
situation was calmed when the Prime Minister intervened but it seems the Finance
Minister did not take the message from his colleagues seriously.
The
writer is a former career Ambassador and retired Secretary.
No comments:
Post a Comment