Haque Specialized Group's News

An unspecified number of transport workers were injured in a clash with police and members of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) at Gabtoli Bus Terminal in Dhaka city on Wednesday morning. Witnesses said the trouble began when some transport workers prevented some anti-strike workers from taking their vehicles out to the streets in the morning. As the fight escalated, the law enforcers charged baton and dispersed the protesters, leaving some of them injured. Minutes later, the workers regrouped and started hurling brick chips at the policemen and Rab members, triggering chases and counter-chases for several times. The law enforcers arrested four transport workers from the scene. The agitated workers also set fire to a police box in the area in the morning. On Thursday night, they set fire to a police van in the area. Asked about the Gabtoli incident, Dhaka Metropolitan Commissioner Asaduzzaman Miah said the police personnel were asked to exercise the highest restraint while dealing with the workers. A good number of law enforcers were deployed from Technical intersection to Aminbazar in Savar upazila to ward off any untoward incident. The strike, enforced by Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation, protesting the life term imprisonment of a bus driver in a case filed for a road accident that killed five people, including noted filmmaker Tareque Masud and cinematographer Mishuk Munier, entered the second day today. In the capital, no inter-district bus left Gabtoli, Mohakhali or Sayedabad bus terminals in the morning while very few buses were seen plying the road throughout the city.   ....

Published at: 2017-03-01 00:00:05

The government will enter into negotiations with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) over US$ 60 million loan for implementation of a natural gas project, officials said. "The negotiations with the AIIB will be held early next month," a senior official of the Economic Relations Division (ERD) told the FE.   "We will start discussion on the loan and project agreements on the natural gas infrastructure and efficiency project next month," he said. The Bangladesh government has constituted a high-powered committee for negotiations over the financing. The 11-member committee will sit with the AIIB on March 01 at ERD. The proposed project is in line with the government's development plan. The AIIB has agreed to provide Bangladesh with US$ 60 million loan at the government's request. It will be co-financier with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the lead financier of the project. The cost of the project is estimated at US$ 453.00 million, including taxes, duties, contingencies, and financing charges during construction. Loans from ADB and AIIB will be used on a pro-rata basis to finance the cost items. Any shortfall in the funds would be covered either by the government or the implementing agencies. The project will be implemented between January 01, 2017 and December 31, 2021. The proposed project will have two components. Under one component, seven wellhead compressors (five operating and two standby) will be installed in Titas Gas Field. It is estimated that additional 1.0 trillion cubic feet of gas will be produced from Titas Gas Field after completion of the project. Under second component, a 181-km gas transmission pipeline will be constructed. The proposed pipeline, to be installed between Chittagong and Bakhrabad, will transport re-gasified LNG to central and west gas markets. The objectives of the proposed project are: (i) to improve efficiency in the current gas production in Titas Gas Field; and (ii) expand the gas transmission pipeline's capacity between Chittagong and Bakhrabad. On completion, it will help maintain the current level of production at required delivery pressure to the gas transmission network, and overcome the capacity limitation of the existing 24-inch transmission line.  ....

Published at: 2017-02-28 00:00:04

The Supreme Court (SC) has extended time by two more weeks again for the government to issue a gazette notification on the disciplinary and conduct rules for lower court judges, reports UNB. An eight-member bench of the Appellate Division (AD), headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha, passed the order on Monday in response to a time-petition. The bench fixed March 14 for the next hearing. Earlier on February 13, the SC had granted the government two weeks to issue a gazette notification in this regard. On February 6, the court extended the previous deadline by a week in response to a petition filed by Attorney General Mahbubey Alam. The SC on December 12, 2016 asked authorities concerned to issue the gazette notification by January 15, 2017. Later, the deadline was extended until February 5. President Abdul Hamid had decided not to issue a gazette over the matter despite a court order requiring the government to do so. Then the bench said the President might have been misinformed. A historic AD verdict on the Masdar Hossain case mandated drafting a 12-point guideline on the separation of the judiciary from the executive. So far, the SC has issued multiple orders asking the government to issue a gazette notification on the finalised rules.....

Published at: 2017-02-28 00:00:04

The government may downsize the Annual Development Programme (ADP) by 6.0 per cent to nearly Tk 1.04 trillion today and bank heavily on domestic resources. Officials said Monday the Prime Minister-led National Economic Council (NEC) in its meeting in Dhaka today (Tuesday) is likely to finalise the draft Revised ADP for the rest of the current financial (FY), 2016-17, with cut-down foreign funds for spending inabilities of the government agencies. Planning Commission (PC) officials said although they were going to trim down the funds by a significant amount of Tk 70 billion from the development partners' committed available project aid (PA), they are likely to allocate finally the record-highest Tk 712 billion from the internal resources in the upcoming RADP. In the proposed RADP, the allocation from the internal resources for the first time is crossing the mark by Tk 5.0 billion to Tk 712 billion. The original ADP outlay was Tk 707 billion. After the trimming, the project aid (PA) stands down by Tk 70 billion to Tk 330 billion in the RADP from Tk 400 billion worth of original ADP outlay. Meanwhile, Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said Monday they had been forced to go for the significant cutback on the PA due to the impact of the July 01 militant attack in Gulshan on development works. "Since the development partners returned home after the Gulshan attack, the development works for at least six months have been hampered. It has slowed down the ADP-implementation rate. So, the PA spending has also been affected," he told reporters at a briefing at his office. When asked, he replied that cent-percent development-programme implementation would not be possible this year owing to the fallout of the Gulshan café attack. "The mega-projects like construction of Matarbari 1200-megawatt power plant, Metro Rail in Dhaka and even the Padma Bridge have been affected, which slowed down the ADP implementation," Mr Kamal said. According to the Planning Commission (PC), the size of the RADP including the allocations for autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies is likely to stand at Tk 1.12 trillion. The PC has allocated about Tk 85.95 billion worth of funds for the autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies in the upcoming RADP. In the last FY2016, the government cut the ADP to Tk 910 billion from the original size of Tk 970 billion in the second half of the fiscal. A senior PC official said the Power Division is likely to get the highest Tk 123.5 billion in the upcoming RADP, the Ministry of Railway Tk 89.77 billion, the Road Transport and Highways Division Tk 78.16 billion, the Bridges Division Tk 65.27 billion, and the Shipping Ministry Tk 14.58 billion. The Planning Minister at the press briefing said the spending rate under the ADP could be higher if the implementing agencies had spent more funds from the foreign aid available in the pipeline. In the pipeline, Bangladesh's total concessional loans and grants accumulated to a record-high US$36.5 billion to date, he added. Meanwhile, more than two months ago, the PC had started work to revise the Tk 1.107 trillion ADP for the current FY2017 due mainly to poor performance of the public bodies in project execution. A top PC official said this is a bad news for the country that the government agencies are failing to utilise the confirmed foreign assistance for different projects. "The development partners are still providing Bangladesh concessional loan for developing its infrastructure and cutting poverty. But the public agencies are failing to utilise those available funds, resulting in a ballooning of unutilised foreign aid in pipeline," he added. The development partners usually make commitment of aid for different development projects. Upon the spending of the money for the project works, they disburse their committed funds.     kabirhumayan10@gmail.com....

Published at: 2017-02-28 00:00:04

Seven reform measures taken since the country's independence for appropriate institutional changes in Bangladesh Railway (BR) failed to deliver, leaving it as a loss-incurring entity as 45 years ago. Sources said the relevant authorities overruled a recommended autonomous BR management meant for operating the popular transport system to its full potential.         A latest reform that began 10 years ago also proved useless as the consultant's recommendation for turning the state-owned enterprise into an independent entity with full autonomy remained shelved, they said. Though the reform was supposed to bring changes in administrative, financial, management and accounting systems of the BR, they added, it still continued to run through orthodoxy-based bureaucratic tiers and manual practices. "The bureaucratic tiers rather increased in the latest reform, making any decision process longer than before," said an official. He said there are duplications of works between the BR and the Ministry of Railway (MoR) for an increase in tiers with both doing policy and planning work.  Senior officials at the BR said since the independence, the railway system had tried to bring bureaucratic changes either ignoring the importance of the pro-poor transport service or for lack of knowledge about multi-disciplinary railway system. "But during British India, the railway was totally independent without control of the British government which helped unable it to be profitable and expansion owning the country's significant portion of land," said one of them. In the name of such reforms, the railway has been rendered weaker from one reform to another afterwards, he added. The latest reform under the Asian Development Bank financing made only rail-container service a corporation in April 2016 but made the Ministry of Railway (MoR) top-heavy with 108 officials against recommendation for 61 to carry out policy-level work. DG's power was curbed in taking important decisions like promotion, transfer of the railway officials who work under him and it proved to be enough to reduce efficiency of the railway. According to official record, the railway, which owned from the British India 2603.92-kilometre route, could add only 274 kilometres during 69 years. Since the start of Pakistan era, railway had been operated first under Pakistan Railway Board and then East Pakistan Railway Board introduced in 1962 which mainly tried to follow the British system running under board of directors. But this power was first stalled in 1973 for three years but totally stopped in 1982. Record shows that after 1983, the railway has been tried to be operated under the communications ministry with director general-cum-secretary as administrative head till 1995. In 1995, a nine-member Bangladesh Railway Authority was formed which could not function well, forcing the government to launch a fresh reform in 2006. Before that, the BR was a section under 'road and rail division' of the ministry of communications. Sources said under the latest reform programme the government announced line of business (LoB) of BR, empowering MoR, as the DG is accountable to the secretary. Organogram of MoR was doubled than the recommended over 60 personnel. They also alleged that the DG's power has been limited to promoting lower-tier railway officials and employees and MoR's strength has been enlarged. Dire need of huge manpower at field level to run different stations and trains, however, remained unmet. Officials said under the latest reform, necessary studies were done for introducing seven modules, including financial accounting, fixed-asset management, payroll module and procurement and inventory-management modules. But still the BR calculates accounting system manually for non- installation of its own IT network. However, Railway Secretary Feroz Salah Uddin said the BR has been functioning with its full autonomy in operation of the state-owned trains. "Ministry does the work of supervision, monitoring, coordination so that development work can be expedited and quality ensured," he told the FE at his office. The secretary said the reform was able to decentralise the power between the ministry and the BR. Still, he added, reform is a continuous process and the ministry has been trying to do best for the railway sector. However, transport expert Prof Md Shamsul Hoque said worldwide practice in increasing institutional strength is to give power to this kind of technical institution in functioning independently. He said BR's strength has been weakened following controlling by non-professional and non-technical persons for long. From the context of sustainability, it is not desirable. Dr M Shamsul Hoque also opined that independent decision-making power of the BR could increase its nonoperational benefit through using its huge land and reducing dependence on subsidy. "Bright future of the Bangladesh Railway has gradually faded out. So it is needed to be sufficiently empowered to make it performance-oriented," said the professor of civil engineering of BUET when his opinion was sought in this regard. Experts also emphasised the functioning of railway, from top to bottom, under a single organisation as mass and public transport and a pro-people service sector. The BR annual loss continues to rise, amounting to Tk over 80 billion till 2015.     smunima@yahoo.com....

Published at: 2017-02-28 00:00:04