Inherited crises cannot be an excuse, says PM Tarique Rahman

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has said that his government does not want to use the problems it inherited—including the gas and electricity crises—as an excuse. He said the government is working according to a plan to resolve these problems, with the goal of ensuring peace, relief and security in people’s daily lives. The prime minister and Leader of the House made the remarks in his concluding speech at the third session of the 13th Parliament yesterday, Thursday. The session began on 27 August. In his closing remarks, he spoke about the gas and electricity crises and the government’s efforts to address them, irregularities and corruption in various sectors, and relations between the government and the opposition.

Describing the circumstances in which his government took office, Tarique Rahman said there was a mountain of irregularities and corruption in every sector, including gas, electricity, industry, education and banking. The people of the country are well aware of these problems, he said. Criticising quick-rental power plants, Tarique Rahman said the state had been burdened with debt by providing benefits to certain people in the name of such projects. Yet the previous government failed to find a lasting solution to the power crisis. The prime minister said his government did not want to use the problems inherited from the fascist rule as an excuse. Instead, it wanted to develop and implement plans to resolve them so that peace, relief and security could be ensured in people’s lives. The government is working tirelessly toward that goal, he said. Criticising the previous government’s efforts to extract gas from domestic sources, Leader of the House Tarique Rahman said, “Our neighbouring countries on both sides of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal are extracting…