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Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Bangladesh Polls cost highest in Asia : WB

Tuesday August 30 2005 10:09:23 AM
The World Bank country director, Christine Wallich, on Monday said election campaign expense in Bangladesh is among the highest in the world, fuelling corruption and hindering infrastructure development.( The New Age BD )The finance minister, M Saifur Rahman, and the state minister for power, Iqbal Hassan Mahmood, however, refuted her and termed her observation ?sweeping comments on a poor country?.They were speaking in the inaugural session of an international workshop on ?Infrastructure Financing in Bangladesh? at the Dhaka Sheraton hotel, jointly organised by the Bangladesh Bank and the Board of Investment with the assistance of the World Bank.?Current problems of infrastructure governance lie outside the infrastructure sectors themselves and lie in Bangladesh?s system of corruption,? said Wallich, while delivering her speech as special guest.Terming election financing one of the major sources of corruption, she quoted some ?apocryphal? figures saying $3.3 billion, which is about five per cent of the GDP, were spent by the parties in the last elections

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