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Share market was resurrected on 25 January 2011 if not re-incarnated. Both the bourses of the country were closed during first two days of the week as directed by Securities and Exchange Com...mission (SEC) the regulatory authority of the capital market. Earlier for last two weeks DSE witnessed bizarre scenes as the angry investors remonstrated against the massive fall of index.

The government along with all paraphernalia rushed to the scene and after a lot of deliberation declared a series of steps to be taken and implemented for the restoration of normalcy in the market. Before proceeding further let me quote a few lines from the famous book, "The great crash" written by the great economist and diplomat J K Galbraith.

The book was written on the great share crash of USA 1929. His comment was as follows -- No one was responsible for the great wall street crash. No one engineered the speculation that preceded it both were the product of the free choice and decision of thousands of individuals. The latter were not led to the slaughter. They were impelled to it by the seminal lunacy which has always seized people who are seized in turn with the notion that they can become very rich.

There were many wall streeters who helped to foster this insanity and some of them will appear among the heroes of these pages. J K Galbraith has blamed the investors and the brokers and the government has not been brought in the scene. Here lies the tragedy.

It will need a long discussion which has been earlier done. The government has laid stress upon the restoration of confidence among the investors. Some measures taken will definitely increase the confidence level. But it will not reach its height unless the shenanigans are punished.

The government has already formed a three member committee headed by Ibrahim Khaled Chairman Krishi Bank and former Deputy Governor, Bangladesh Bank. Khaled Ibrahim, a few days back made a very articulate statement regarding this scam wherein he has pin pointed certain persons. Their names have not been mentioned but the people by and large have been able to identify them.

Most of the people fully believe this view expressed by Ibrahim. If Ibrahim even on bonafide ground is compelled to exclude these suspected names from the report, it will be widely unacceptable to many persons. But their inclusion will again give the shenanigans the plea to say that the report is biased. The best course for Ibrahim will be not to accept this responsibility. The share scam of 2011 should be seriously looked into. It has brought disrepute to the government greatly.

I have heard even some common people to say that, the share scam and Awami League government are inextricably linked. This has occurred due to the fact that, on both occasions of the Awami rule the political considerations have prevailed over economic issues. Those who advised the government were not fair. The long and short of the story is that the government will have to be firm and the inquiry should be free and credible and acceptable. No option is left if the government wants to get rid of this blame.

In this connection, it may be mentioned that many share market experts believe that there would not have been recurrence of this scam if the persons responsible for 96 share crash would have been punished. During last three days of the trade, the situation in the DSE area was peaceful. The index increased but the traded amount was not enough. This is natural after such a big trauma.

The oldest theory of the share market is to buy in a bear market and sell in a bull market. So, at present the buyers have far out numbered the sellers hence the decline of the trade. But we hope that the situation will improve gradually.

The writer is a share market analyst and a former secretary of the DSE