Provide service to people to ensure votes, Hasina tells mayors, councillors

The prime minister said that voters will have faith in their public representatives if they serve them well

Providing service to the people will ensure their votes in the future, says Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

”All of you have been elected by the people. If you can ensure service to them, it will ensure their votes for you in the future. They will have faith in you. Please keep this in mind and focus more on serving the people,” the prime minister said at the oath-taking ceremony of the newly elected mayors of the Mymensingh and Cumilla City Corporations on Thursday.

Hasina recalled that Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman took the initiative to open 10-bed hospitals at the union level to guarantee people’s access to health care, but he could not implement it. ”When I formed the government, I opened community clinics. Locals provided us land, we built the structures, arranged for medical equipment and appointed health workers. We provide 30 types of medicines for free. As public representatives, you must monitor if the health centres are running well and people are receiving services,” she said.

The Awami League government works for the welfare of the people and it only serves the people, the prime minister said. It works for the development of the country and takes initiatives to bring development to every part of it, she said.

"We design our development plans focusing on the rural areas. We must develop the grassroots level if we want to develop the country. Social and individual development of rural people is a must for the overall development of Bangladesh. We must ensure an increase of their purchasing capacity and financial solvency.”

The prime minister also highlighted that an increase in people’s purchase capacity would create a local market for the country’s products if the focus was on the ‘industrial sector.’ Her government was working toward that goal, she said.

”The government aims to provide service to the people, raise the quality of their lives, and establish planned urban areas. We design all of our plans to ensure that people in the rural areas get all urban amenities,” Hasina told the public representatives.

She said the current Bangladesh was a ‘changed country’ and a fifteen-year-old could never imagine the state Bangladesh was in 15 years ago, before 2009.

“Bangladesh has come a long way. Our GDP and per capita income have increased. Most importantly, we were able to push down the poverty rate.”

Hasina said that many countries would want Bangladesh to import food and remain dependent on them, but Bangladesh will never become dependent on a larger country, the prime minister said.