The Transparency International Bangladesh on Thursday expressed disappointment as the interim government sent a too large delegation to the 80th United Nations General Assembly.
The anti-graft watchdog in a statement said that the government must explain to people why it sent a delegation of more than 100 members to the UNGA, what message it wanted to give, and what real benefits taxpayers and citizens would get from it.
It alleged that the government had sent such a large delegation following the practices of the fallen authoritarian regime.
TIB executive director Iftekharuzzaman said that, during the fallen regime, sending large delegations to the UNGA and other international forums was a common practice, sometimes exceeding 200 representatives.
鈥業t was hoped that a government formed through unprecedented student and people鈥檚 movements with a strong commitment to transparent, accountable governance and state reform would avoid repeating this practice,鈥� he said and added that, unfortunately, the interim government had followed a similar path.
Regrettably, despite issuing clear directives to prevent wasteful foreign trips funded by taxpayers, the government has raised questions about its credibility by sending over a hundred representatives to the 80th UNGA session, he said.
He said that powerful countries such as the United States, Russia, and China generally send comparatively large delegations to secure their multilateral diplomatic influence, and even then, delegates exceeding one hundred are rare.
By contrast, the tendency of some countries lacking good governance, such as Nigeria, to send large delegations can rarely be justified by anything other than 鈥楯unket鈥� in the name of diplomacy, said Iftekharuzzaman.
The interim government set a hopeful precedent last year by sending 57 representatives to the UNGA to avoid the waste of public money.
Iftekharuzzaman said, 鈥榃e had expected this number to decrease further this year. Yet, the embarrassing practice of the authoritarian regimes has been repeated.鈥�