Prime Minister's Information and Broadcasting Adviser Dr Zahed Ur Rahman today addressed a panel discussion of a national conference on setting a five-year strategic framework for achieving the SDGs. Photo : BSS

DHAKA, Aug 11, 2026 (BSS) - Prime Minister's Information and Broadcasting Adviser Dr Zahed Ur Rahman today said every institution in the country has been destroyed over the past one and a half decades during fascist regime.

He was addressing a panel discussion of a national conference on setting a five-year strategic framework for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre here.

Rahman said various kinds of false information had been spread through manipulation. Therefore, it would be unreasonable to expect major changes within just six months of the present government assuming office, he said.

The adviser said comparing Bangladesh with Sri Lanka would be entirely inappropriate.

In Sri Lanka, there was economic mismanagement by the government, which led to a reserve crisis, he said. 

However, the country had a government elected by the people, and its institutions had not been destroyed, he mentioned. 

As a result, it was much easier for the new government there to carry out economic reforms after coming to power, he said.

He said an exaggerated picture had been presented regarding the size and growth of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). 

During the last three to four years of the fascist Awami League regime, Bangladesh experienced a period of stagnation accompanied by inflation, he said.

"I am not saying that our future is very bleak. But we probably need to keep in mind the foundation on which we are standing. We are still paying the price for the disastrous governance of the past 15 years," he said.

"From a technical perspective, considering where we are now, it may seem that our economic reforms or growth should at least have been progressing faster. As far as I understand economics, I do not think the situation can be explained by any simple reason," he added.

He said it was not easy to suddenly move away from the mindset that had developed within the police and various other state institutions over the past 15 years.

"Many people in the bureaucracy have also lost the understanding of how to work with an elected political government. An elected political government will seek quick results because it will want to show those results to the people and seek their votes again. Such tendencies were absent over the past 15 years," he said.

"That is why I believe the issues of institutional reform are interconnected. We need to give some time for these reforms to be implemented," he added.

Economist Professor Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud chaired the panel discussion which was attended by Policy Exchange Bangladesh Chairman and Founder Dr M Masrur Reaz, retired Professor of Economics at the University of Dhaka Abu Ahmed, Secretary of the Statistics and Informatics Division Md. Firoz Sarkar, and Secretary of the Finance Division Dr. Md. Khairuzzaman Majumder.