Has something happened to Akbar Ali Khan? Of course not. He is very much alive, and we want him to be around for at least 30 more years, if not more.
This year, I am celebrating 25 years of my acquaintance with Dr Akbar Ali Khan -- one of the faces of public service in Bangladesh, a true civil servant, a freedom fighter, a change-maker, a committed teacher, and most importantly, a genuinely good soul. When you observe him, he seems like a small child, even at the age of 71.
I grew up under the shadow of Dr Khan. However, God was not as kind to me as he was to Akbar Ali Khan. I dare not claim to possess even a fraction of his wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and sagacity. Yet, we have been good friends for many years. I suffer from some kind of a melancholy if I don’t get to talk to him for a few weeks.
My public sector head role at ANZ Grindlays Bank in the early 90s made me close to him. I used to look up to him and try to grasp what this man was talking about. How is it that he understands everything about everything?
When he was the NBR chairman, I went to see him with my boss, Geoff Williams, from Standard Chartered Bank, to advocate for tax benefits for offshore banking. The man gave us a speech about the entire tax scenario for offshore banking in Malaysia, Taiwan, and Nassau in Latin America and sent us back with nothing to show for ourselves.
When he became the finance secretary, Dr Khan called me one day and asked to help Bangladesh raise some foreign currency to support large transactions in state-owned banks. While I was scratching my head to figure out which desk at SCB would be appropriate for me to go to, Dr Khan told me: “I know one or two SCB franchises which have performed securitisation of inward remittance.” I was astonished. How is it that this one man knows so much?
After a few months, Dr Khan was talking about the discounting of overseas telephone call fees. I was not at all surprised. His eyes were like scanners. He is one of the fastest readers I have ever met. He would call me a few months before the national budget and ask for a “half pager” on any industry sector such as ceramic, cables, leather goods, or local books export. A few more months down the line, and I could see some reflections of those half-pagers in the national budget -- either tax had gone down or special incentives were announced.
This “old young man” has a subtle sense of humour. If you go through his articles, many of them have references to Nasiruddin Hojja! After attending the launching of his book Porarthoporotar Orthoniti, I asked Dr Khan: “Sir, how do you come up with all these subtle attempts at making fun?” He smiled and replied: “As the finance secretary, I have to do so much dull, unpalatable, and monotonous work that having some fun is the only thing that keeps me from jumping out of a window.”
In a small study I had done, on what really helped Bangladesh come up to where it is today, I remember interviewing dozens of civil servants, university teachers, and political leaders who worked very closely with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib and Ziaur Rahman, many of them having fought for our independence as well.
It was evident that a few North America-educated civil servants, a few of those also being freedom fighters, played a significant role in the transformation and growth of Bangladesh’s economy. Akbar Ali khan was not only one such individual, but he played a pivotal role during this transformation process, driving the economy to a more competitive pre-take-off stage.
During the 1998 flood, while Grameen Bank was facing a cash crunch, Akbar Ali Khan gave me two books on Grameen Bank’s success and on Professor Yunus, and asked me to courier them to our risk seniors in London.
He got our seniors to grant a special support funding of Tk500m to Grameen Bank. I could write a few thousand words on Dr Khan’s contribution to wherever he was posted in order to serve this nation, and whatever task he was assigned, be it Water Resources Ministry, PATC, the finance division, the cabinet division, the World Bank, or even during a short stint with the caretaker government.
I remember publishing a critique of his book Porarthoporotar Orthoniti in a vernacular daily. When his book Ajob o Jobor-Ajob Orthoniti was published, he probably expected the same. I was late in reading that book, but when I did, it felt as if I had taken the best bath of my life -- so refreshing, so revealing, and so diverse was Dr Khan’s deep-dive understanding of what was happening around him.
Wait a year or two more, and we will be getting another really meaningful, deeply-analysed, and thought-provoking book from him, as his recently published Gresham’s Law Syndrome and Beyond has proven. Who says he is ill? With his mental fortitude he can run a 100m sprint. He is truly one of a kind. Keep on going, Dr Khan.
