Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam : I think, the government has decided to give loans at 5 percent interest rate to buy houses or apartments to win support from the government employees during the upcoming general election.
There are so many people in the society who do not have any house and they have to take loan at 10-11 percent interest. There was no need to raise salaries for government staff. Probably it was necessary taking inflation into account. I will not make any comment whether the hike helped soar or reduce corruption. However, if anybody gets away with committing corruption, then the tendency of corruption will go up.
The writer is a former finance adviser to a caretaker government.