Muhith for outright shutdown of BJMC to revive jute sector

FE Report
Finance Minister AMA Muhith finds outright shutdown of the loss-incurring BJMC as a better way for jute-sector revival, revealing an inter-ministry rift over future of the 'golden fibre'.
"My first advice is abolish BJMC, that will be good for jute sector," he told reporters Wednesday after a meeting in the finance ministry's conference room at Bangladesh Secretariat.
He said the jute mills should be functioning autonomously under public-private partnership (PPP) after abolition of Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation or BJMC.
The finance minister's remarks came two days after junior jute minister Mirza Azam had blamed Mr Muhith and the ministry for 'obstructing' a kiss of life to the once-famous jute sector.
Replying to a query the minister said the government wants revival of jute sector, as a new market of the 'golden fibre' has been created, "but I don't like the process pursued for the revival".
He feels that, in this revival process, there is no necessity of existence of old BJMC. "I told them there is no room for BJMC.
Under the new process, "I said all the (plants) should be PPP projects. There what the bloody hell the BJMC should be doing. It should be abolished."
Asked what course of remedy can be followed, the finance minister said the BJMC should not have any existence and a cell at the ministry should look after the jute plants.
"I told it to the (jute ministry) officially but they do not obey. Because, they fell in trap of BJMC," he lamented.
Muhith came on saying, "How much investment we have in jute. Initially when we established BJMC, we paid several thousand taka to them. We also cleared their entire bank loan. After that we paid between Tk 4.0 billion and Tk 5.0 billion every year. Despite that, they are unsatisfied and hungry for money."
The minister also said the management of the BJMC is horrible "and that's why I dislike them".
At one stage, finance secretary (in-charge) Mohammad Muslim Chowdhury said the seasonal employees of BJMC should be 50 per cent and 50 per cent should be permanent.
But what they did is they made 90 percent employees permanent staff, he said.
Financial institutions division senior secretary Eunusur Rahman said recently the government provided policy support to jute sector.
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