Jatiya Party lawmaker Mujibul Haque Chunnu on Sunday told the Jatiya Sangsad that the government should bring the prices of essential commodities within the reach of the common people if it wanted to return to state power in future.
Speaking on the proposed budget for the fiscal 2010-2011, he said that development works would not help the ruling AL-led alliance to go power in future, if the price spiral of the essential commodities including rice and oil could not be controlled.
'If the government wants to come to state power in future, the price of essentials should be brought within the capacity of the common people and if necessary, the development activities should be stopped to ensure food for the people,' said the JP lawmaker.
Alleging partisan role of the high court judges, he said that the procedure to appoint judges should be specified in the constitution to ensure transparency in the appointment of judges.
'The role of judiciary is now under question as the judges are being appointed from among the ruling party men,' he said. Criticising the deployment of mobile courts during the opposition sponsored hartal, he said that a private member's bill to protect public property was placed by himself in the House but the bill was not passed.
'Both the present and past prime ministers during their regimes spoke against hartal but they did not stop the practice,' he said, adding that if the bill was passed, it could save the life and property of the people from the anarchy of hartals.
Chunnu also expressed disappointment over the status of lawmakers in the warrant of precedence and demanded up-gradation of the lawmaker's status by bringing a bill in parliament to this effect.
'It is unfortunate that the public servants like cabinet secretary and chiefs of the army, navy and air force are holding higher status than the MPs and it should be changed,' he added.
He said that the lawmakers had no role in the budget enactment process and demanded that there should be scope for the lawmakers to contribute in the preparation and implementation of the national budget.
'Although we get a chance to speak on budget in parliament, our opinions are never taken into consideration,' he said.
The state minister for Forest and Environment, Hasan Mahmud, however, claimed that the prices of essential commodities did not increase in last two and a half years during the regime of the AL-led alliance government.
'The important matter is the purchasing capacity of the people. The purchasing capacity of the people has increased by at least double during the regime of the present government,' he said.
Awami League lawmaker SK Abu Baker said that the ministers of the government should be aware of the commitments of the Prime Minister given to the people in different times as any failure in implementation of her commitments would put a negative impact among people in the next elections.
He also demanded to bring pace in the activities of the war crimes tribunal to ensure trial of the war criminals by next year.
'The Anti-Corruption Commission should be strengthened to reduce corruption as the commitment of uprooting corruption was given in the electoral pledge of the AL-led alliance,' he said.
Another AL lawmaker Asaduzzaman Khan said that Taka 3,000 crore subsidy given to the agriculture sector in the last fiscalyear had been withdrawn from this year's budget.
'But I think the subsidy should be continued to the agriculture sector,' he added.
AL lawmaker Shah Alam also wanted more subsidy for the agriculture sector.
Source : New Age
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