Hasina and her Energy Adviser’s Warning about Famine and Blackout indicates that her Government is Going Bankrupt along with WB-IMF Policies
Press Release
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Hasina and her Energy Adviser’s Warning about Famine and Blackout indicates that her Government is Going Bankrupt along with WB-IMF Policies
No sooner had Sheikh Hasina urged the countrymen to prepare for the use of lamps-lanterns, than her energy adviser Taufiq-e-Elahi advised the people to take the pledge not to use electricity in the daytime. After taking industrial and agriculture production to the brink of collapse together with immense suffering of the common people due to ‘load shedding’, her clown advisers and ministers are now asking the people to save these sectors. It is evident that the power sector collapse quickened due to her government’s endemic corruption and policy of handing over the electricity generation to crony Capitalists. The secular politicians, intellectuals, and economists are too deluded to find the link to this energy crisis which is the result of the neocolonial policies of WB-IMF. Since the 80s, World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) enforced the infamous “Washington Consensus” in Bangladesh and have opened the door to the looting of our energy sectors by ultra-elite Capitalists via massive privatization programs. WB’s notorious ‘Production Sharing Contract’ (PSC) has made sure that a major share of our energy resources is at the hand of enemy countries, such as US Chevron, ONGC Videsh of India etc. So, our energy sovereignty always remains at risk and at the mercy of the disbelieving West. Since 1987, we have surrendered our oil and gas fields to the Colonialist powers one after another instead of trying to build our own capacity for onshore and offshore energy exploration. We have to buy our own energy from foreign companies in US dollars at international prices. These policies have made our energy sector crippled although we are endowed with an abundance of natural energy resources. The neocolonialist intervention has worsened our economic and energy crisis and left us in a big mess. On one hand, the government is being submissive to Colonialist prescriptions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions even though Bangladesh is a very low emitter and thus neglecting our domestic coal reserves and clean coal technology for power generation (“John Kerry praises Bangladesh for climate change adaptation, mitigation initiatives”, Dhaka Tribune, 23 October 2022), but on the other hand, they are importing expensive coal every year to fulfill the interests of the businessmen! Moreover, the government is also ready to pay four times to India’s Adani group for expensive coal power whereas it announced cutting food subsidies for the poor by around USD 100 million showing the excuse of rising global fossil fuel costs.
The Hasina government’s remarkable ‘success’ is the plundering of people’s wealth and laundering of the country’s money by capitalizing the WB-IMF policies of opening up to trade and foreign investment, deregulating economic activities, and privatizing state-owned enterprises. Their policies of converting our economy which was largely self-sufficient in food into chronic food importers have destroyed our agricultural sector. By pursuing these suicidal WB-IMF policies and endangering our food security, Hasina is now warning the people about imminent famine! Besides, this secular Capitalist government has drowned the entire country in foreign debt just to serve the interests of the elites, and now is asking the people to be ready for a looming reserve crisis and bankruptcy as it will not be able to pay import bills of necessities in the coming months. They are trying to hide the fact that within the last year while USD 10 billion of reserves were depleted (from USD 46 Billion to USD 36 Billion), their government has facilitated extensive foreign borrowing by the local Capitalist elite that has jumped to USD 17 Billion from USD 11 billion (sharebiz.net, 25 October 2022). Right now IMF delegations are in Bangladesh and will stay in Dhaka until 9 November amid growing fear over foreign exchange reserves and public debt. They have initiated talks with the government to reduce subsidies and incentives that will only make the lives of the common people miserable. All they care about is punishing the mass through their fiscal belt-tightening, aka notorious “austerity programs” and market-freeing policies that will make the feet of the Capitalists stronger. We will see the mass people will be further hit hard by falling real incomes and spiraling unemployment due to their “bailout packages”. Allah (swt) says, “Did you not see those who have exchanged Allah’s favor with ingratitude to Him, causing their people to be cast in the abode of ruin?’ [Surah Ibrahim: 28]
O Muslims, would you still look upon these treacherous rulers, still plead to them for electricity, and still expect that they will bring relief to your livelihood? Would you still stare at them for a way out, although you have no doubt that these slavish rulers are the spearheads of Kafir Colonialists whose destructive Capitalist system is relentlessly turning our prosperity into misery? Instead, you should immediately demand from the sincere officers of the military to remove their support from these agent rulers. Remind them that these rulers are enjoying such free rein to destroy our lives and livelihoods only by riding on their backs. Demand their ‘Nusrah’ (material support) for the sincere and courageous party Hizb ut Tahrir. Because only this party has outlined clearly how it will take responsibility for the people by implementing Hukm Shariah comprehensively under the system of the Khilafah Rashidah (rightly-guided Caliphate) on the method of Prophethood There is no room for elitism in Islam and under the Khilafah there will be no scope of handing over the natural resources belonging to the public to local and foreign companies. Citizens under the Khilafah State, irrespective of their race and religion, will be the main beneficiaries of the natural resources and minerals. And unlike the secular Capitalist system, the imminent Khilafah will look after the management of this energy sector on behalf of its citizens and give equal rights to these resources. The Khilafah will not let any group turn these favors of Allah into misery in the name of privatization. Allah (swt) says:
* وَلَوۡ اَنَّ اَهۡلَ الۡقُرٰٓى اٰمَنُوۡا وَاتَّقَوۡا لَـفَتَحۡنَا عَلَيۡهِمۡ بَرَكٰتٍ مِّنَ السَّمَآءِ وَالۡاَرۡضِ*
“Had the people of those towns believed and been God-fearing, We would certainly have opened up to them blessings from the heavens and the earth” [Surah Al A’raf: 96]
Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir / Wilayah Bangladesh