While officials joyride, power supply slides

A newspaper report recently summed up how we waste foreign exchange; while there are no funds to import essential spares for power plants. The officials usually visit the factories abroad where power plants are manufactured.

It is a total waste of time and valuable foreign exchange; either ours, or provided as aid, grant or loan to us. Imagine one official as reported, going overseas 30 times in a year.

Given that a year works out to 300 working days, the person concerned spent one in ten days out of Bangladesh on an average.

Hard earned foreign exchange wasted in such a manner must be stopped. The funds should be spent on purchasing spare parts, consumables and for plant modification as these are the critical areas where the country needs to focus more.

Even some overspending under these heads may be tolerated, but not pleasure trips abroad. Not any more. We want more such reports on officials who regularly go abroad on such trips in the name of gaining experience. Such trips, useless as they are, benefit the self-seeking officials only. We should part with this culture.

Engr S A Mansoor

Dhaka