Bangladesh’s economic issues have always run deep, despite the promise it still holds. For years, institutional quandaries have resulted in a stifled economy, one in which business success has been defined less by creative thinking and more by nepotism and knowing the right people at the right place -- which has resulted in the status quo, with inflation rates refusing to budge and a banking sector that is perennially on the verge of collapse.
It is no big secret that our financial sector has been hemorrhaging for years, primarily due to widespread corruption and irregularities which have come to define the outgoing Awami League government. Coupled with our dwindling foreign reserves and unchecked levels of money laundering over the past decade and a half, the writing was on the wall regarding the state of our banking sector.
The Bangladesh we have today cannot afford to make the same mistakes with its financial sector.
A month of unrest has already left an indelible mark on the economy, the interim government will now need to take some decisive actions in order to set things straight again. And it all starts with putting the most qualified people at positions of power in our financial institutions.
With the resignation of the Bangladesh Bank governor and the chairman of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission, the time is now perfect for the interim government to fill these two very important seats with far more competent people. Indeed, one could argue that, when it comes to fixing the economy, nothing is more important than fixing our central bank at this point.
It is only by targeting structural deficiencies that Bangladesh can get back on its track to being a prosperous economy.