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BAGERHAT: Prime Minister Tarique Rahman today warned those conspiring to destroy the country’s industries, saying the people would unite to give them a befitting reply, just as they did in 2024.
He also assured garment workers that a new minimum wage would be fixed within the next one or two months.
“We will stand against the conspirators with all our strength, together with the people of the country, the working people and our brothers and sisters among the workers. Just as the people of Bangladesh gave them a befitting reply in 2024, they will be given a befitting reply in the days ahead,” he said.
The Prime Minister made the remarks while addressing a roadside meeting at Katakhali intersection on the Khulna-Mongla highway around 12:30pm, en route to visit the shrine of Hazrat Khan Jahan Ali (R) in Bagerhat.
Tarique Rahman said a people’s government had been established and had started working on plans to change the fate of ordinary people, but conspirators were trying to derail its efforts.
“The people and the country’s workers must stand up against these conspiracies so that the conspirators get no opportunity to create trouble. Now is the time to build our country and change the fate of our people,” he said.
Warning those involved in the alleged conspiracy, the Prime Minister said, “We will give these conspirators a befitting reply with all our strength, Inshallah. Our goal is one: ‘Let us work, build the country; Bangladesh first’ (Korbo Kaj, Gorbo Desh; Sobar Agey Bangladesh).”
He said those who had failed to improve people’s living conditions over the past 15 to 16 years, deprived them of their voting rights and siphoned off the country’s wealth abroad were forced to flee following the mass uprising on August 5, 2024.
“They (the ousted forces) are now pulling strings from across the border and trying to create disorder and chaos in the country. Not only that, they are trying to destroy the country’s mills and factories,” he said.
The Prime Minister said mills and factories were the wealth of the country and its workers. Their destruction would primarily affect working people, particularly workers and their children, whose future would be jeopardised.
On the wage issue, Tarique Rahman said the elected government was working round the clock to address the country’s problems and expand industries and trade so that people could enjoy better living standards.
“We know that workers have raised some demands regarding their wages. You have seen that we have already formed a wage board to consider those demands,” he said.
The wage board had started working and would fix a new minimum wage within the next one or two months to help workers improve their living standards, he added.
The Prime Minister said the BNP had pledged to create jobs, reopen closed public and private mills and factories, and encourage local and foreign investors to establish new industries if it formed the government.
“We will try to reopen mills and factories that have been shut down across the country at different times, especially those in the public sector. Alongside this, we will encourage investors at home and abroad to set up new mills and factories because we want to create employment opportunities for the country’s young people,” he said.
Recalling that Khulna was once one of the country’s leading industrial regions, he said many factories in the area had gradually closed for various reasons.
The government wants to establish thousands of factories across the country, stretching from the south-western districts of Khulna, Bagerhat, Kushtia and Chuadanga to Panchagarh in the north, he added.
Earlier in the morning, the Prime Minister attended the signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding on economic and infrastructure cooperation between Invest Bangladesh and China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), a Chinese state-owned company, in Mongla.
He later laid the foundation stone of the Mongla Port expansion and modernisation project.
After the roadside meeting, he visited the shrine of Hazrat Khan Jahan Ali (R) in Bagerhat. He was also scheduled to attend the opening ceremony of Notun Kuri Sports (Season-2) at Khulna District Stadium in the afternoon.