Few thoughts why people should be aware of uphold BD image abroad, or be aware of harmful propaganda against BD.
Daily Ittefaq
Amadershomoy
And A report from
The Wall Street Journal
----------------------------------------------------
World Bank Shots on Corruption
July 23, 2008; Page A16
The World Bank is nothing if not persistent. In recent weeks,
the bank has announced low-interest loans of $320 million apiece to Bangladesh and Vietnam, despite their awful corruption records.
Since May, Bangladesh's military-backed government has arrested an estimated 12,000 people without charge and confined them to overcrowded prisons. Human Rights Watch reports "well-documented patterns of torture and mistreatment of detainees." The government has cancelled plans for a December election over the objections of the two main political parties, whose leaders have also been in and out of jail.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
•
World Bank Scorpions 05/08/08
•
World Bank Confidential 03/10/08
•
World Bank Disgrace 01/14/08
•
World Bank Runaround 10/18/07
None of this has deterred the bank from going forward with a $200 million "transitional support credit," which it says the government needs to deal with rising commodity prices and last year's Cyclone Sidr. There is also a $120 million "power sector development policy credit" that will "support the government's overall power sector reform program." The bank justifies these loans partly on account of the "impressive economic and social gains" it claims Bangladesh has made, and partly because it thinks more money would actually help address the corruption problems.
For a reality check, the bank might have consulted its own experts. According to the bank's internal data on "governance indicators" in Bangladesh, measures of government effectiveness, political stability, "voice and accountability," regulatory quality and control of corruption all declined between 1998 and 2007. A report from Transparency International reaches similar judgments.
Under former President Paul Wolfowitz, the bank cancelled 14 road contracts in Bangladesh after evidence came to light of corrupt bidding. But with Mr. Wolfowitz gone, bank lending to the country under President Robert Zoellick has doubled in the past year alone, to $753 million.
----------------------------------------------
Just take a look at those 'red highlighted' part, I have no idea where it came from ...