Using a rather harsh tone, Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Sunday said no matter how many demonstrations teachers of state-run primary schools, private schools and Ebtadayee madrasas staged to realize their demands of pay scale upgrade, enlistment under the government’s Monthly Pay Order (MPO) and nationalization, they will not receive anything.
“They (the teachers) are free to do as many demonstrations as they want. They won’t get anything,” he said.
Blaming the Ministry of Education for its lame-duck approach towards amending the MPO policy, the finance minister said he would set some tough conditions for the aforementioned ministry if it wanted to bring in more private schools under the MPO policy.
“I have specifically asked the Education Ministry to amend the current MPO policy. They did not do so. That’s why I am setting some tough conditions this time.”
Muhith, however, did not disclose the conditions he had been mulling.
The minister, while speaking to journalists outside his ministry office on Sunday, also binned economic think tank Centre for Policy Dialogue’s (CPD) report titled “State of the Bangladesh Economy in FY2017-18 (First Reading),” terming it ‘rubbish.’
“CPD has been trying to drag Bangladesh down in front of the world. They (CPD) never publish anything positive about Bangladesh. Whatever they do, all are rubbish,” Muhith said.
In its report, the CPD has identified the year 2017 as the year of banking scam.
“The year 2017 will be remembered as the year of banking scam,” said CPD distinguished fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya at a press briefing on the half-year review of the country’s economic situation at Cirdap Auditorium in Dhaka on Saturday.
The CPD’s analysis was mainly focused on the banking sector, Rohingya issue and the impact of the floods.
Debapriya said the overall economic situation had been under tremendous pressure following these three major incidents in the country.