What is a 'ruined economy' to the finance adviser

On 28 August, during Ekattor TV's 'Business Weekend' programme, presenter Iqbal Ahsan interviewed the government's advisor on financial and planning matters. In the interview, the finance advisor strongly claimed that all current crises were created by the fallen government. He further claimed that this government is supposedly cleaning up the mess left by the past. The advisor is a professor of development economics. However, he brought Rabindranath into his argument by saying, 'Whatever is lost, the mistress of the house says 'Keshta is the thief'. He stated that no crisis is contemporary; they are all accumulated crises. In that case, no development is contemporary either; all are offerings from the past. Economic history teaches us that past governance can indeed be blamed for a current crisis. But the rule of the fallen Awami government ended two years ago. Did the crisis then skip over the interim Yunus government and land solely on the BNP's shoulders? Shouldn't the Awami League's crisis have fallen on Yunus's government? The advisor did not mention anything about the one-and-a-half-year interim rule. The finance minister himself, however, acknowledged that the 18 months of governance further devastated the economy. The data supports this. Both investment and growth have decreased in the face of high inflation and high unemployment. One cannot hope for better during the golden age of mobocracy. Yet, the finance advisor made a giant leap to 2024-2026. In 1958, Chinese leader Mao Zedong introduced the theory of the great leap in the country's industrialisation. It holds historical value. But will the Finance Adviser's 'temporal leap theory'—offered to shift the blame—hold any real weight? Another advisor gained fame by theorising that no blame for the current energy crisis should fall on the current government. With advisors increasingly stirring the field with their political statements, the future seems bleak for members of parliament. In the interview, the finance advisor repeatedly mentioned that they have inherited a 'devastated' economy. If a leader at the district or sub-district level had made such a statement, I wouldn't have felt compelled to respond. But when a teacher of economics at Dhaka University repeatedly uses the word 'devastated' without understanding its definition, it must mean that the government wants to hear this narrative from socially recognised scholars. Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow of CPD, questioned this use of the word 'devastated'. He demanded documentation from the government to support this claim. This government should have started work by composing a 'review' of the state of the post-COVID economy over the past five years. It could have included both the Awami and Yunus governments. There would be no need to speak from old white papers. Those who have previously worked for free on white papers might have still worked if invited. Perhaps the government refrained from this 'stocktaking' task for fear of offending the scholars of the Yunus government. They abruptly started work without proper homework. Taking this opportunity, advisors are following the 'Wolf and the Lamb' story, providing one 'blame theory' after another. None of these have any basis in data. If we search Google or ask AI for examples of a devastated economy, four primary national examples arise: 1. The Great Depression in the United States, 2. Hyperinflation in 1920s Germany, 3. The catastrophic famine during the Great Leap Forward in China from 1958 to 1962, and 4. The Argentine crisis from 1998 to 2002. The main indicators of devastation here are massive GDP contraction and famine. In some cases, GDP contracted by up to 30 per cent. That means those countries experienced negative GDP growth, which has never happened in Bangladesh's 50-year history. So, by what theory did the advisor discover this 'economic devastation'? Is there a separate definition of a devastated economy in development economics? After the fall of the Ershad government, from 1991 onwards, Bangladesh entered a new era of market economy and growth. According to the World Bank, in these 35 years from then to today, Bangladesh's average growth has been 5.5 per cent, which is the second-highest in South Asia. Only five years during this time saw GDP growth dip into the 3 per cent range. These years were - 1. The first year of BNP in power, i. e. , 1991, 2. Another year of the same tenure, 1994, 3. The start of another BNP tenure, i. e. , 2002, 4. The COVID year under Awami rule, 2020, and 5. The year 2025 under Yunus's rule. Even in these years of poor growth, did any economist say that the economy had collapsed? Apart from 1971, no year in Bangladesh's history has seen a devastated economy. Growth then had fallen to a negative 5.5 per cent, and in 1972 it dropped to negative 14 per cent, which remains the worst contraction in Bangladesh's history. After the genocide and destruction of infrastructure by the Pakistani army, this record drop in growth was not unusual. By that measure, if the current advisor were narrating the story of a devastated economy in 1973, it would have a documentary basis. In the last year of Awami rule, in 2024, growth was 4.22 per cent, yet during their 16 years from 2009-2024, Bangladesh's average growth was 6.16 per cent. Where are the signs of devastation here? Many malpractices have occurred in the economy under Awami rule, especially in the stock market and banking sector. Economists have spoken and written extensively on that. I have written multiple books myself. But no one has burst out with baseless claims. Researchers must remain objective, not emotional. According to the World Bank, after 2006, BNP left an economy worth 80 billion dollars. Subsequently, Awami League took an economy of nearly 100 billion dollars in 2009 and turned it into a 450 billion dollar economy by 2024. In 2025, GDP reached 456 billion dollars. In 2026, it is estimated to approach 500 billion dollars. This GDP is now planned by the BNP government to be transformed into a trillion-dollar economy by 2034. If 450 billion is equated with devastation, then we are in trouble. Development is a cumulatively promising process. Recognizing the good and bad of the past is a sign of intellectual courtesy. What a minister or MP can do or say may not always be appropriate for an advisor. A minister will often highlight the Prime Minister's statements. In contrast, an advisor should present a data- and knowledge-based analysis, enriching people through research. #Dr. Birupaksha Paul is an economics professor at the State University of New York at Cortland. *Opinions expressed here are the author's own. #This article, originally published in Prothom Alo print and online editions, has been rewritten in English by Rabiul Islam