Doing away with black laws

When questionable financial negotiations and deals, particularly those involving highly critical matters of national importance, cannot be questioned, there is every reason to smell rat in those undertakings. Such issues may be political or financial in nature but once those are given legal indemnity, the scope of review and transparency diminishes. The Quick Enhancement of Electricity and Energy Supply (Special Provisions) Act, 2010 has been one such doubtful deal right from the beginning. In fact, the special law is a misnomer; it is a black law that has been extended several times well beyond its tenure and parliament's jurisdiction. The latest renewal was effected in 2021 for five more years until 2026. Ex-state minister for power energy and mineral resources of the deposed Awami League government told parliament in September last that 82 independent power plants and (IPPs) and 32 rental power plants were paid over Tk1.0 trillion (1049.26 billion to be precise) in rental payments.

It is heartening that the interim government's power and energy, and road transport and bridges adviser has made it a point to place the special law under review. It needed scrapping long before because the dubious deals with private power plants have been mainly responsible for capriciously escalating prices of electricity consumers use. The interim government is also constrained to scrap the deal right away, but it has assured of bringing the deals under the scanner. However, fresh negotiations and deals with power and energy projects that were either initiated or scheduled to be initiated have been suspended. On the first day of his office, the power and energy adviser has also decided to revoke the legal provision of adjusting power and natural gas tariff by executive orders. The toothless tiger the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) was turned into will now have its say in matters of the two utilities' price adjustments as before.

Much as the power crisis was beyond tolerance and the urgency of meeting the same was pressing initially allowing the concession for avoidance of legal tenders for inking deals with rental power plants, there was no need for hiding the contractual agreements from the public. In the United States of America, there are classified materials that are not subjected to public perusal, considering the sensitivity and secrecy of defence-related issues involved. Where utilities such as electricity and gas are concerned, every citizen has the right to know why the prices of those continue to gallop. Instead of taking on the systemic corruption, the secret deals simply stoked irregularities, bribery and malpractices in purchase, procurement and approving power and gas connections for consumers.

Understandably, the interim government has its limitation in repealing all the black laws. But if any of those is the number one candidate, it surely is this special law allowing unlimited favour for the quick rental power plants. Coal-fired power plants already in operation and completed recently cannot go into production of power simply because of the shortage of coal. The total generation capacity of grid-based installed power plants was 26,844 megawatts by March this year. Leaving the thermal power plants idle and subsidising costly imported oil and gas for rental power plants were not without an ulterior motive. It sustained the dubious process of minting money illegally for a select few.