One tender can propel a person from obscurity to sudden social recognition. That is why tenders worth millions of dollars begin to float in the air of this poor country as soon as a new government becomes godinashin (comes to power). Whether the country needs many of the items and projects that are tendered for is a question that never gets answered. But, come what may, tenders have to be floated.

Actually they are floated deliberately for various purposes. Getting the right kind of material to meet an emergency is only one of the many purposes. It is the rest of the "purposes" that go to make such interesting stories.

Becoming a millionaire in the shortest possible time is one such purpose of a tender. Even in the US, one cannot become a millionaire so fast. It is possible in Bangladesh, if you have connections with Windy Castle or Honey Cottage or other important buildings.

We can look at one such story of how a 100 million dollar tender can make the relevant minister and his okalkushmando (worthless) son, state minister and his opodartho (again worthless) brother-in-law, their PS(s), relevant secretary of the ministry, joint secretary, deputy secretary, project engineers, project managers, peons and drivers all millionaires in three months.

It happens as simply as this. Somewhere someone needs something urgently, and you as the junior most officer in the ministry sit down to prepare a tender document so that the material can be imported from abroad. First, you put in the technical specification as per what has been handed down to you from the higher authorities.

Then comes the financial part. What you have before you is the lowest possible price idea of the material, freight cost and other charges to bring it to your doorsteps. But wait, you cannot take that price to calculate the total cost. Because if you do so then your head would roll on the carpet! So, what do you do?

Simple. You contact Altu and Faltu to go talk to the son, son-in-law, brother, and brother-in-law of the minister, state minister and the secretaries concerned to advise as to what amount you have to add over and above the actual price, which is, let's say, 30 million dollars. "Add 50 million dollars for us," Altu and Faltu are advised. You do it diligently."

Then comes the question of taking the advice of the project engineers and project managers. "Add 20 million dollars for us," the advice reaches you. So you have the tender worth 100 million dollars ready to be floated.

What about the ECNEC and Finance Ministry hurdles? Did you also say PMO hurdles? In Golden Bengal the blessing of these offices worked more effectively than divine blessing to turn paupers into millionaires in three to six months.

Tender for honest politicians

Well, that was the shortest story ever written on tendering in Golden Bengal. But right at this moment the people in this great country are facing a major crisis and the problem can only be solved through floating a tender. This would be a genuine tender inviting suppliers to supply a bunch of honest politicians.

There is an acute crisis of this material in the country and consequently a huge demand for this dwindling variety of professionals has been created since the present caretaker government took over power.

It has been reported that each and every political party is frantically looking for at least a few of them within the party to sell to the people during the next general elections. But they have been immensely disappointed by the situation over there. Next, they have searched outside the party but there again none was found to meet the specifications of an honest and competent candidate.

But crisis (actually necessity) is the mother of all inventions. So, they came up with this brilliant idea of tendering for honest politicians with the hope that genuine supply houses would be able to supply such men and women.

Accordingly, party bigwigs have become busy preparing the specifications of honest and competent politicians keeping in view what the common people would want this time during the elections.

It seems the political parties have finally come to realise that the common people are now more conscious than before as far as selecting the right candidate is concerned. This time around they would not vote for anyone coming up wearing the jersey of a so-celled big party along with lots of false promises. The people are now able to call a thief a thief point blank.

Export dishonest politicians as scrap material

We import scrap ships to dismantle them into pieces and then sell the parts. It is known to be a profitable business. We may encourage our export houses to find markets abroad for most of the old and over-used politicians who have become nothing but nation's liability. They are failing to remain on course and have lost steam and they have become threats to our environment.

Therefore, they must be dismantled before a major disaster is caused. So far they have only taken from this country and given nothing in return. Let us export them as scrap material so that we may earn good amount of foreign currency. Any takers?

Shahnoor Wahid is a Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.