Bangladesh Nationalist Party - BNP - Vision - 2030

BNP is of the opinion that the people of Bangladesh has been dispossessed of the ownership of the state that they had created through the great liberation war. BNP wants to hand over the lost ownership of the country back to her people.

BNP is committed to building a liberal democratic society wherein freedom of expression and rights of citizens upholding national interest shall be protected. BNP unwaveringly pledges to respect opinion or belief of any group or individual, however small it be.

We do not believe in ‘one day democracy’. BNP does not like people’s power to confine to election-day alone. BNP wants to be true to the hopes and aspirations of the people reflected through every day public opinion.

BNP aims at managing the affairs of the state with due deference to the opinions of the civil society, mass-media, opinion surveys, expert opinion, essence of all sorts of knowledge gathered through experience and day to day hopes and aspirations of the people. BNP, armed with mass support, will resist the sinister move of exiling democracy by the authoritarian ruler taking recourse to the fallacious plea that development is pre-eminent over democracy.

Existing constitutional order vests all executive powers of the republic unilaterally in the hands of the Prime Minister. This system is completely inconsistent with the recognized form of parliamentary system. Experience of the recent time made the people of the country deeply realize that the monolithic executive authority of the Prime Minister has created an authoritarian dictatorship with a parliamentary façade. In order to bring an end to this situation, the executive powers of the republic shall be balanced through appropriate constitutional amendment.

As a part of the reforms of the current constitutional arrangement, it will be examined if Upper House of the JatiyaSangsadmay be established keeping the existing unitary character and structure of the constitution intact.

After coming to power in 2009, Awami League brought 15th and 16th amendments to the constitution through which the system of referendum and caretaker government system during election was abrogated. Some undemocratic articles/sections were incorporated into the constitution like the system of holding JatiyaSangsad Election keeping the erstwhile parliament alive, somemore undemocratic articles/sections were incorporated into the constitution barring bringing changes, addition, substitution, abrogation, or the introduction of articles/sections in certain parts of the constitution. Additionally, the power of impeachment of the judges of higher judiciary was vested upon the JaityaSangsad. BNP shall make a review of these controversial and undemocratic articles/sections and bring in necessary reforms to the constitution.

BNP shall restore the provision of Referendum in the constitution to reinstate the democratic right of the people.

JatiyaSangsad will be transformed into the center-point of all national issues. The opposition parties will be shared on all issues of national interest. The chairmanship of public accounts committee and public undertakings committee shall be offered to the members of the opposition. In order to strengthen the parliamentary activities, different caucus shall be encouraged to be formed integrating the back-benchers from the opposition and treasury bench.

Rain-bow displays in brilliant sequence a glow of seven bright colors in the autumn sky. BNP wants to nurture a political culture involving all political shades of opinion and paths that will transform Bangladesh into a ‘Rain-bow Nation’.

BNP is firmly determined to reach the destination of democracy, justice and fair-play, which had been the tenets of the liberation war consecrated by the people. Hence, BNP wants to combine together 3 Gs – ‘Good policy’, ‘Good governance’ and ‘Good administration’.

To ensure democracy, good governance and economic transparency, BNP shall cleanse all constitutional and statutory bodies of the filth of vested interest and party-philia through adopting all legal and procedural measures to enhance efficiency and restore confidence in these bodies.

National institutions have been turned ineffectual for serving narrow party interest. BNP will ensure effectiveness of the state administrative machinery, police and other relevant national institutions through giving due recognition to honesty, efficiency, merit, capability, patriotism and judiciousness alone, without considering loyalty to party that be.

BNP will give credence to training, experience, honesty, excellence in merit and creativity only, for considering eligibility in civil and military administration. BNP will make it a must to put an end to partisan and extralegal interference and see to it that judiciary, public administration, and police enjoy the freedom to lawfully discharge their duties.

BNP shall not make any compromise with corruption. In order to arrest spread of corruption in the society like a filthy wound, rule of law, accountability and transparency shall be thoroughly implemented along with procedural and legal reforms.

The office and position of the Ombudsman shall be createdas per the constitution in order to ensure administrative accountability and transparency.

Bangladesh is now an unsecured and risky land. Even a child in the mother’s womb is not free from the claw of cruel crimes. People seeking justice from the court is being denied justice. Courts are used to suppress the members of the opposition parties. A culture of impunity has engulfed the country. In order to redress the situation, fairness and justice should be ensured. To achieve this goal Public Administration, Judiciary, Police, and Prison have to be reformed. These institutions should be made transparent, efficient, modern, and updated.

BNP is totally faithful to human values and dignity. BNP is oath-bound to rule of law. Suffice it to say that no rule of black law shall be acceptable to BNP in the name of rule of law. BNP shall annul all sorts of black laws. BNP shall bring an end to all forms of inhuman physical and mental torture and extra-judicial killings to keep people free from all forms of cruel treatment.

‘Special Powers Act 1974’ shall be repealed.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations shall be implemented.

It is agreed by all that there is no transparency in the appointment process of the Judges. The criteria for appointment, promotion, posting, and jurisdiction of the judges of the highest to the lowest courts will only be merit rising above partisan considerations. The judges of higher judiciary shall be appointed on the basis of strict standards of knowledge, wisdom, morality, patriotism, sense of judgment and goodwill. In order to ensure competence, merit and transparent process in the appointment of judges of the higher courts in the light of the constitution, a law shall be enacted laying down the competence and standard through a Select Committee and Supreme Judicial Council. The CV and wealth statement of the persons so selected/recommended shall be made public.

Fair justice and rule of law for the people shall be ensured through effective independence and neutrality of the judiciary. The lower courts will be freed from the control of the executives and a separate secretariat under the Supreme Court will control them.

Administration of justice and the process of justice shall be transformed fully into electronic/online management to make them corruption free, transparent and accountable to the seekers of justice. The justice seekers will know about the open information of the courts through electronic/online system and mobile phone technology.

Pending cases will be freed from case-jam through appointing required number of competent judges.

Jury system in lower judiciary will be re-introduced on a pilot basis consisting of non-controversial, respectable, ethically correct, and ideal persons to make the judicial process transparent, speedy, and acceptable.

Village-courts shall be re-formed to transform them into effective courts with a view to reduce the load of cases on the shoulder of higher courts and to encourage local justice and alternative dispute settlement. It will be examined to see whether traditional informal arbitration courts can be introduced side by side with existing village-courts under Union Parishads.

A high level Judicial Commission shall be formed to reform existing worm-eaten justice system.

Police in many instances does not entertain cases at the police station. This is denial of justice. Right to even justice in the criminal cases through proper protection of law on the part of criminal justice seekers will be ensured through use of online method and mobile technology.

The police force will be built up congruent with the spirit of a free and democratic society. The police force will be turned into a force that revers the public through motivation, training, and moral up-liftment through ensuring judicial oversight on the police in the light of CrPC, PRB, Police Act, and all other relevant Acts and Rules and thus create an accountable and welfare oriented public administration.

The Police Force will be turned into a skilled, state of the art and well equipped force in keeping with fast changing world and technological advancements. The law enforcing agencies will be freed from partisan influence to make them smart, skilled, neutral and welfare oriented so that they can protect life, liberty, and property of the public and establish peace and discipline and rule of law through performing duties neutrally and professionally. All sorts of undesirable political interference on the law enforcing agencies will be stopped.

Lower field level police staff including Police Constable / Traffic Police and ASIwill not be allowed to continue in duties at a stress for more than 8 hours, or they shall not be compelled to do so. For performing risky duties, they will be given Risk Allowance and for working beyond 8 hours, they will be paid Overtime Allowance at reasonable rate per hour. Effective steps will be taken to solve the housing problem of the police personnel of the rank of ASI down to Constables.

Pay and allowances and other privileges of the public servants shall be increased in line with the prices of the essentials. 38. Far reaching reform program will be taken up for the police and public administration to ensure public safety. It has become a big challenge in Bangladesh to appoint right person to the right post. Rising above personal bias, or parochial party loyalty, public administration will be reorganized on the basis of merit, honesty, efficiency, capability, patriotism, morality, and sense of judgement.

An efficient, transparent, dynamic, meritorious, accountable, consistent with the spirit of time and pro people public administration will be built up. Appointment process shall be reformed appropriately to ensure the value of merit. Quota system other than for sons and daughters of the Freedom Fighters, women, and marginal ethnic groups will be abolished. An appropriate Civil Service Act shall be enacted in keeping with dynamic globalization and in the light of the constitution. E-Governance shall be introduced at every stage. In order to increase the efficiency of public administration, advanced training will be arranged at home and abroad.

There has been a tremendous erosion of ethical and moral values in Bangladesh. This has led to severe social unrest and anarchy. BNP is firmly committed to resisting this erosion of ethical and moral values through the instrument of mass media, academic curriculum, inculcation of proper religious values and positive social movement.

Teachers and students will be imbibed with appropriate spirit to create inclusive, humane, tolerant, just and egalitarian society.

Social safety network shall be expanded further for the survival of the disadvantaged and ultra-poor people irrespective of caste, creed and religion till the end of their povertyso that no poor and distressed person shall remain outside the purview of social safety network. Per capita allocation in this regard will be increased in keeping with inflation. In order to ensure food security for very low income people, Government Rationing system shall be introduced.

The amount of allowance for the distressed widow, women abandoned by their husbands and the helpless old will be increased in keeping with the rate of inflation. The distribution of special type of allowances will be made free of corruption and flawless.

A “Pension Fund” will be created to ameliorate the sufferings of old people who had been engaged in private sector jobs. This fund will be created out of a specific percentage of the income of such persons so that it comes for the use of reducing distress and sufferings in the old age. The contributors to this fund will be given a just rate of profit. One can contribute to this fund since the beginning till the end of one’s working life. Those who will contribute to this fund will be given loan out of this fund on the basis of relevant rules and regulations.This pension fund money may be invested for economic development and infrastructure building.

A mapping of the areas affected by poverty, distress, and lack of education, health facilities and infrastructural benefits will be made through an intensive survey of the grass root areas. Short term material assistance will be given to the ultra-poor of these areas to give them an opportunity for survival. In medium and long term, sustainable employment opportunities will be created in these areas through development of education, health, and physical infrastructure so that in future they need not be dependent upon any charitable grants. The old-age people, the disabled, and those lacking earning member in the family will be uninterruptedly brought within the safety net. In every such village, people deserving the benefits of safety net will be identified through a committee of local government members and respected citizens through holding discussion in an open meeting to ensure transparency.

A regulation will be made enabling the disabled to travel by bus – train - launch for free.

Economic inequality is getting exacerbated in Bangladesh over time. This state of affairs is not at all desirable in the interest of national unity and stability. BNP is committed to poor-friendly and egalitarian economic growth. BNP shall tackle the twin problem of poverty and rich-poor inequality through accelerating growth rate and through even distribution of its benefits.

BNP wants to transform Bangladesh by 2030 into a modern and democratic high-middle-income country. Within this period, per capita income shall be upgraded to $5000. In order to achieve this goal BNP shall adopt creative and intelligent initiative toboost annual growth rate to a double digit figure.

Establishment of manufacturing industry in Bangladesh is very costly due to scarcity of land. Given this harsh reality, BNP will go for economic use of limited land resources to set up industries and will also adopt a development strategy of least-land-intensive modern service industries like bank, insurance and financial service, hotel-restaurant, IT industry, amusement industry, tourism, transportation, telecommunication, distance-learning, air-hub, water-hub, security services, ports and shipping, tele-medicine etc.

The power and supervisory role of the central bank shall be upgraded to ensure discipline in the financial sector of the country. In the backdrop of share market and bank plundering, capable, honest and efficient persons shall be appointed in the Security and Exchange Commission and in the board of directors of nationalized banks to stop furthercorruption in these sectors.Political interference in the functioning of the financial institutions shall be put to an end. Shedding partisan and parochial considerations, the members of the board of directors and other executives of the public and private banks shall be appointed on the basis of competence, honesty and efficiency. Banking division in the Ministry of Finance shall be abolished, and the task of monitoring the nationalized banks shall vest with the Central Bank.

Bangladesh is passing through a demographic transition. At the moment 63.25% of Bangladesh population falls within the age bracket of 15-64. Therefore the biggest proportion of Bangladesh population falls in the group of active population. It has significance for economic development. A country where the proportion of children, juveniles and old age people is lower can accelerate the pace of economic development through utilizing the active population. However, such opportunity comes only once in a nations life. Both the children and the old age people are dependent on the income earned by the active people. Under such a situation, higher proportion of active population contributes towards accelerated and higher economic growth. Active population includes both woman and man. South Korea could take advantage out of demographic transition and has become a developed state. On the other hand despite being wealthy, Nigeria could not take advantage of this situation, and therefore mired in poverty.

According to a projection of the Asian Development Bank, the size of active population of Bangladesh in 2025 will be 78 million. In 2010 it was 56.7 million. In 2010, 2/3rd of the active population was minimally literate and only 4% got some form of training. Different estimationsreveal that every year 2.2 million persons enter into the job market in Bangladesh. Out of which only 1 million gets job. The rest remains unemployed.

To avail the opportunity of demographic dividend, employment has to be created for all active persons. This is a huge task. In order to achieve this goal, the national savings rate has to be increased to 40%. This saving has to be invested in totality. A portion of the investment will be used for required human resource development. The other potion has to be used for the fast development of agriculture, industry, and service sectors.

To achieve the goal of human resource development, change has to be brought in the mindset of the people. The youths of the country has to be freed from non-technical ‘Diploma Disease’. Diversity in the field of education has to be brought in consonance with taste, ability, merit, and market demand. Training program has to be introduced for professional and technical education, engineering education, medical education, science education, and different research areas of fundamental and applied scientific research, hundreds of trade and occupation (for example – plumber, fitter, electrician, electronic mechanic, health technician, nurses, master tailors, fashion designers, agricultural equipment mechanic, lathe-operator, mechanics for garments machineries and their maintenance, mechanics and engineers for industrial machineries, hospitality service, housekeeping, furniture designing, art and craft work, masonry, rod binder, land surveyor, rail workshop technicians, mechanics for vehicle, motor driving, printing technologies, and technicians for repairing mobile telephone and computers). This presupposes quality primary and secondary education. Parallely, at every stage of education and training, the quality of the teachers has to be improved. If necessary Bangladeshi scientists, engineers, and professors working abroad are to be utilized. Necessary number of institutions for trade and vocational education and certification are to be developed. To develop human resources, both the government and private sectors have to be utilized efficiently. Instructors and trainers of technical and vocational institutes have to be given special economic and other benefits, so that these institutions become effective. The banks and financial institutions have to be encouraged to spend for human resource development a larger slice of the money they use for corporate social responsibility. The main strategy during demographic transition period will be to create efficient human resources through enhancing savings and investments and to create attractive job market through investment in them. It will be necessary to create a bridge between education, research, training institutions, and business firms. Human resource has to be developed through advanced knowledge, technology, information technology, and education, and create jobs for the human resources so developed. There has to be a balance among tacit knowledge, applied knowledge, theoretical knowledge, applied and theoretical research, and such other knowledge creation activities. If we want to make Bangladesh a developed and dignified nation, there is no other alternative to achieve demographic dividend. Attaining demographic dividend is one of the priorities of BNP.

According to human development index–HDI 2016 of the United Nations, Bangladesh ranks 139th position among 188 countries. This indicates that Bangladesh has not yet been able to achieve high index of human development and could not take effective steps for achieving the demographic dividend. BNP shall adopt planned and effective steps for attaining High Human Development Index within 2030.

Though the present government talks big about the ICT Sector, the real picture in not that bright. ITU Report 2016 informs us that Bangladesh ranks 145th among 175 countries in ICT sector, lagging behind Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan. BNP will give priority to ICT sector and will take effective measures to enable Bangladesh march along with the rest of the world. Human resource in ICT will be excelled.

ICT sector shall be transformed into the highest foreign currency earner by 2030 in keeping with the service-driven economic strategy. Outsourcing and software development shall be encouraged. All irrational obstacles on the repatriation of foreign currency earnings from ICT sector shall be removed. All global payment gateway facilities will be allowed at minimal charge.

Consistent policy and strategy shall be adopted for content creation and publication.

NTTN, ISP, and IIG shall be opened up leading to more competition, enhanced efficiency, and lowering the internet cost.

VOIP will be opened up. This will ease up and reduce communication cost with the rest of the world. Business using internet and the people in general will gain in efficiency and productivity. A great leap forward will be realized in exports, domestic market oriented industries, e-commerce, and ICT sector in general including outsourcing. There shall be employment creation, skill development, and a boost for government revenue. The corruption ruling roost in VOIP sector will be arrested.

Optimum use of ICT will be ensured in any sector that demands its use, such as administration, judiciary, education, health, commerce, communication, agriculture, and research. A specific and clear policy-package shall be adopted towards this end.

A national award will be introduced in recognition of extra ordinary contribution in ICT. National ICT award shall be declared for the best school, the best college, the best teacher, and the best freelancer.

Foreign investment in ICT sector shall be eased. To ensure foreign investment and domestic and foreign initiative in the ICT sector, appropriate institutional arrangement and different types of incentives shall be provided. In order to make maximum use of IT Innovation Fund, different creative and coordinated plan shall be implemented by 2030. Meritorious youths and interested entrepreneurs working in software industry and IT service sector shall be given all-out assistance. A consultancy organization will be built up to enable innovation capacity of the new entrepreneurs and its application. In the appropriate field, entrepreneurs who are financially insolvent will be given financial incentives at low rate of interest through expandingthestartup-fund.It will be encouraged to create Mutual Fund and Venture Capital for ICT industry through the capital market.

Very high speed internet will be ensured in keeping with time through developing internet infrastructure so that mobile data can be transferred within shortest possible time and broadband will be provided at low cost.

Multiple links will be established with submarine cable to enhance capacity of bandwidth and uninterrupted internet connectivity will be ensured.

High speed 4G coverage will be ensured for the whole country, especially for the rural areas through the mobile companies. In correspondence with international development, 4G or higher speed internet coverage will be ensured in future.

Different types of incentives will be given to software and hardware industries. Domestic production of different components of internet such as smartphone, laptop, etc. will be encouraged. Zero tariff rate shall continue for all items used in ICT.

Modern ICT infrastructure will be built up through providing uninterrupted, stable, and quality electricity and IT Parks, both public and private, in different areas of the country including Kaliakoir. Software Technology Park, Hi tech Park, Education Park, Computer Village and IT incubator will be established to enhance opportunities for knowledge development and employment home and abroad. High capacity Data Centers will be established through public and private initiative.

Computer aided learning will be introduced up to HSC level. At this stage, computer programming education will also be introduced. Huge number of well trained teachers will be appointed to achieve the goal.

A ‘Smart School’ will be established in every district so that these schools serve the purpose of model technology demonstrator.

Computer training institutes for training of the computer teachers will be established in every district.

IT institutes will be established in different tiers under the local government. IT sector shall be encouraged by providing scholarship to the students. More developed IT education system will be established through providing adequate teachers, hardware and laboratory facilities by 2020 at the secondary level, and by 2025 at the primary level. Skill development course shall be introduced along with general education in every school and college.All educational institution and public-placesshall be brought within free and safe internet Wi-Fi zone.

BNP shall remove all obstacles blocking free speech, and freedom of thought of the people. Undemocratic sections of laws relating to ICT and social media (Cyber Security Act, ICT Act, etc.)shall be amended.

BNP shall produce an appropriate and well-timed policy to fix-up specific responsibility of electrical and electronic goods producers, importers, sellers, and buyers to protect the country from the hazards of e-waste. An appropriate collection and management system for e-waste will be developed.

ICT will be BNP’s thrust sector.