"There has not been any substantial change in the economic policies of the two major political parties in the last 20 to 25 years. So, I don't expect much change in the PRSP, if there is a change of government after the next election," he told a dialogue at Cirdap auditorium in the city yesterday.

The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a leading independent think-tank, organised the dialogue on 'Implementing the PRSP: Civil Society's Perspective on Choices and Challenges' with former finance minister and member of CPD Board of Trustees M Syeduzzaman in the chair.

Speaking as its chief guest, Saifur said the political situation in the country now is not good and may turn more adverse in the near future, adding no significant economic development would be possible in the absence of good politics and governance.

To implement the PRSP properly, he said, "We have to improve governance, reduce corruption and strengthen the monitoring and evaluation system."

The minister also emphasised strengthening of local government bodies for a successful PRSP implementation. Otherwise, he said it would be impossible to empower people.

He said, without power, local governance is meaningless, adding, "We are already in the process of strengthening the local governments."

The finance minister felt the assistance of development partners needs to be more harmonised, where there is a major lacking. He criticised the donors for still maintaining a "driving" attitude and for often making contradictory prescriptions.

For instance, he cited the International Monetary Fund once asking to cut interest rates on loans and then for increasing the same.

Turning to the employment situation, Saifur said the perception of a stagnated job generation is incorrect.

At the dialogue, former finance minister AMA Muhith highlighted corruption as a major issue of the time and said it has not been properly addressed in the PRSP.

He also alleged that many official documents are statistically inaccurate.

Muhith, also a member of Awami League's central advisory council, said there was much improvement from the first to the fourth phase of PRSP designing, but, he regretted that the opposition political parties had not been involved in the process at all.

"You need to have a proper investment policy, but there is no policy indicated in this document on improving the roles of district and upazila councils," he maintained.

In his turn, the special guest of the conference, Prime Minister's Principal Secretary Kamal Uddin Siddiqui said there must be a strong and independent monitoring mechanism in place for implementing the PRSP and the prime minister should lead the coordination and implementation process.

He sharply reacted to Muhith's allegation of inaccurate official documents, saying the leaders of the present government do not ask the bureaucrats to do so, who are allowed to work in an entirely professional manner.

"I'm not aware of any figure being doctored in any official document. We don't do that. None of our political masters -- neither the prime minister nor the finance minister -- told us to do that," he asserted.

Siddiqui pointed out that three of the eight priority issues in the PRSP are about governance, adding, "It's a moving document and will continue to change."

At the dialogue, CPD Executive Director Debapriya Bhattacharya presented an analysis of the PRSP implementation challenges. He felt ownership of PRSP acquires a new dimension as the country moves towards another round of parliamentary elections.

According to his paper, the fate of PRSP will be defined by two factors -- the depth of its political ownership and the strength of the partnership commitments of the donors.

Debapriya said the poverty reduction strategy suffers from some inadequacies, but they are not binding constraints for realising its potentials, up to a certain degree. In this connection, he mentioned that the entire cabinet has not discussed the document, neither was it formally tabled at parliament for general discussion.

He also observed that, though the development partners want to remain involved in the country's progress on a long-term basis, they feel frustrated by the slow progress in institutional and policy reforms. In this context, he stressed mitigating the frustration that may affect the PRSP implementation.

The PRSP is ready for the civil society and the civil society is ready for it, stated the CPD executive director, "But are the political masters ready for the PRSP? We are not quite sure of it."

Taking part in the discussion, Asian Development Bank (ADB) Country Director Hua Du underscored the need for mobilising domestic resources and attracting foreign direct investment. She said the ADB would double its assistance to Bangladesh over the next five years.

Du also emphasised implementation capacity building of government institutions and said it is necessary to make public sector procurement procedure transparent so that foreign assistance can be released quickly.

Former secretary Mujibul Haque identified conflicting political culture as a major barrier to implementing the PRSP and called on the ruling alliance and the opposition political parties to jointly address the issue.

He also recommended setting up sectoral advisory committees with civil society's representation on all processes of PRSP implementation.

Bangladesh Economic Association President Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad pointed out that it would be very difficult to implement the PRSP if corruption and the law and order downslide are not checked.