We may have come to a stage in this world where politicians and regulators may soon have to be more than just morally accountable for a wrong vision of the big picture. Otherwise, it is most unbecoming if arguably one of the greatest democracies like Great Britain is to run a referendum only for close to a million people waking up with a sense of guilt at having voted the wrong way.
Policy planners and the parties are the ones who are guilty that their electorate should feel this way. Prime Minister David Cameron should have taken more time for educating the British people about the true implications of Brexit, beyond just the buzz words of jobs, safety, strength and the economy.
Unfortunately, democracy doesn't allow for wrong policies that bankrupt a nation's future to be punished in any other way save voting parties out of power. The laws are in place to handle corruption and other distasteful practices. Maybe new laws can be considered for inefficient governance that ruins a state. This might well be the new requirements in a global economy that is strong as its weakest link. Brexit has exposed not one but many of these unfortunate chinks.
The ramifications are grim and foreboding and again it seems like to have been crass complacency by the well-groomed policy planners that is responsible. It now seems that so much was placed on ridiculous opinion polls that no one bothered with a what-if scenario. Nor can the UK voter be absolved of their inability to have researched the issues before jumping on the Brexit bandwagon. Waking up the next day and realising a wrong decision has been made doesn't help.
And it isn't just Europe that has to figure out how to hold the Union together, the UK must figure out how to stop its sovereignty being torn asunder by the regionality of nationality. At the Euro Cup, Northern Ireland sings the English National anthem whereas the Welsh have their own. And this phenomenon is one that has to be traced back through twisted knots to really be understood. The Irish voted to Remain in the EU, just as the Scottish have. While Scotland's First Minister is now threatening a second referendum on Scotland as a separate nation from the UK, she has also said she will be talking to the European Union (EU) about staying within the fold. Sinn Fein, are leading a call for a referendum to merge Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. And joining the merry muddle is Spain claiming joint ownership of Gibraltar.
Labour's Jeremy Corbyn has been left red-faced because most of his voters didn't listen to him and Boris Johnson will have to outline how he intends to achieve a 'better deal' for the UK. Sooner rather than later, the Brexiters will also have to show how pulling out relieves the UK of paying 'unfair' amounts to run the bloated EU bureaucracy.
What the voters will also realise is that this divorce will be painful simply because the EU do not want to show that exit is easy for the nervous others to follow suit. The immigration card has been played hard; it has appealed. But the proof of the pudding will come when hotels, restaurants, care-giving agencies no longer find lower-end of minimum wage accepting true-blood Brits to fill up jobs.
An estimated 42 separate trade treaties will have to be re-negotiated by the UK to continue trading with Europe and this time tariffs and such will not be as favourable. The Bank of England says it has £130 billion of new capital available and another £600 billion in liquid assets as well as access to foreign exchange. But the obvious question has a simple answer. With the value of bonds likely to increase borrowing will be more expensive and mortgage costs will rise.
The bigger issue for the EU is what they can do with sliding economies such as France, Italy, Greece and Spain. Bailouts and stimulus are part-time strategies and repayments are extremely unlikely. Reforms that clash with local values have fuelled protests in France and Greece but the EU have a duty to explain at some stage why they sat twiddling their thumbs as government after government allowed their economies to reach such a state-overspending, under-earning and falling deeper into debt.
Every country in the world must have watch-dog institutions that can and should review bloated projects and spending that don't deliver either in quality or the promised convenience.
Increasingly private businesses are holding employees accountable in terms of wrong vision and non-achievement of results to the extent to non-payment of bonus or even increments. Unfortunately, parliamentarians and political functionaries don't face any such issue.
Thankfully Bangladesh's macro indicators are healthy. But with mega infrastructure projects continuing to become bloated way beyond preliminary and even revised estimates the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) should reveal the where and whys. Projects approved and then dropped because of poor implementation don't make for good governance. Projects that are included in the Annual Development Programme (ADP) only achieving 70 to 80 per cent implementation by end of May is unfortunate because the remainder cannot be achieved by end of the fiscal unless Aladdin and his genie appears out of somewhere. And in spite of allocations, a continued practice of an appropriations bill (read seeking parliament's approval for over-spend) may be a government prerogative; it isn't good governance.
