Unease grips Bangladesh amid protests in civil administration over interim govt policies

New Delhi: A sense of unease intensified in Bangladesh overnight amid protests in the civil administration and the business sector over policies of the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus.

The mass circulation Prothom Alo newspaper carried a report headlined “protests in the secretariat, NBR turned dysfunctional, Nagar Bhan under lock and key” referring to an ongoing demonstration of government employees against a proposed law involving government employees service, protests of officials of national revenue board and the employees of Dhaka South City Corporation.

A prominent business community leader, Showkat Aziz Russell, meanwhile, said businessmen in the country were being killed just like the intellectuals in the 1971 Liberation War. He warned of famine-like situation as more people become jobless.

“We don’t know how we will pay bonuses and salaries to workers ahead of Eid-ul-Adha,” said Russell, who is the president of Bangladesh Textiles Mills Association (BTMA), at a joint press conference of business chambers.

He told the press conference, co-hosted by the apex Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI), that in the last eight months, the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority had failed to bring in a single investor.

“You are inviting foreigners to invest in the country...(but) foreigners know that investment in Bangladesh is not viable. They know Vietnam is more profitable than Bangladesh,” Russell said.

Government employees, meanwhile, for a second consecutive day staged protests inside the Bangladesh Secretariat, the heart of the administration, on Sunday against the proposed Government Service (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025.

The protesters have been demanding its withdrawal, calling it a black law that made it easy for authorities to take punitive actions and terminate the government employees.

Chief Adviser Yunus’s interim Cabinet approved the law last week and now awaits presidential assent.

National Board of Revenue (NBR) officials also abstained from work for the second consecutive day demanding scrapping of a separate new ordinance and on Sunday announced an indefinite halt to nearly all import-export activity from Monday.

The announcement prompted the government to issue a statement promising not to implement the law without discussions with the Revenue Reform Advisory Committee and other key stakeholders.

The protest began after the NBR Reform Unity Council rejected the finance ministry decision to amend the revenue policy and revenue management ordinance which seeks to dissolve the NBR and form two separate divisions, separating tax policy making from administration.

Government primary school teachers, meanwhile, said they would go on a full-day work abstention from Monday for an indefinite period to press home their three-point demand, including re-fixing their starting salary to the 11th grade of the national pay scale.

Yunus’s government in the past two days faced several other challenges.

There have been reports of discord between the military and the interim government over the possible timeline for holding the parliamentary elections and other policy issues related to Bangladesh’s security affairs, particularly involving a proposed humanitarian corridor of aid channel to Myanmar’s rebel-held Rakhine state.

Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman along with the Navy and Air Force chiefs met Yunus last week and reportedly reiterated their call for election by December this year to allow an elected government to take charge. They also conveyed their reservation about the corridor issue.

The next day, Zaman held a senior officers meeting at Dhaka Cantonment and said he was unaware about the government’s several strategic decisions despite the military’s active role.

The military also decided to be tough against rampant incidents of “mob justice”.

Yunus on Saturday held an unscheduled closed-door meeting of the Advisory Council which later said in a statement that they discussed in detail the “three primary responsibilities entrusted to the interim government – elections, reforms, and justice”.

“The council discussed how unreasonable demands, deliberately provocative and jurisdictionally overreaching statements, and disruptive programmes have been continuously obstructing the normal functioning environment and creating confusion and suspicion among the public,” it read.

The statement said despite all obstacles, the interim government continued to fulfil its responsibilities by putting national interests above group interests.

Yunus on Saturday also held back to back meetings with former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islam and student-led National Citizen Party (NCP) that was floated in February visibly with his blessings in an apparent effort to rally their support for his reform agenda and election issues.

The chief adviser’s office said leaders of 20 more left-leaning, moderate and Islamic parties also called on Yunus on Sunday.

But BNP’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman, who lives in London, in a virtual meeting on Sunday said in the end no plan of the interim government would be effective keeping “political parties and the people in the dark”.

Rahman said his party and others reiterated their demands for announcement of a clear date for the national election while “BNP demands that the national election be held by December”.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal on Sunday framed charges against a former police commissioner and seven other officers for their alleged atrocities during last year’s anti-government protests.

The protests had led to the ouster of then prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s regime.