Dealing with past irregularities in the power sector

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JUSTIFICATIONS are made such as lack of investments, indecisions and bureaucratic wrangling as the reasons for the current state of the power sector in the country. But more than any of these factors or all of them combined, or if one were to make an honest effort to identify the main reason for the failing in this sector, then it would very likely emerge that very pervasive and huge corruption has been the main cause of the dismally performing power sector. A state minister in charge of power under the immediate past elected government resigned from his position, symbolically, as a mark of respect to public grievances and his inability to improve conditions.
The state minister who resigned made waves during his short-lived stay at this ministry by energetically carrying out investigations of the public bodies under his charge. It was established after these investigations that a huge sum of money was found missing from the accounts held by the authorities of the Dhaka Electricity Supply Authority (DESA). There were no records of the spending of this amount of money. In other words, the same was simply misappropriated.
In recent years, new generating capacities have been set up. But their establishment was shot through with corruption at every step. Nondescript firms with dubious records were favoured over companies well known for their efficiency and sound repute. The work orders for building the new plants or installing capacities were given to these companies in return for kickbacks to corrupt officials and their political bosses. Thus, the newly set up 80 mw Tongi power plant tripped nearly a hundred times since it was set up and remains inoperative most of the time. Besides, new investments for establishing generating capacities were extremely hazarded by the tug-of-war between vested interest groups in sharing hidden kickbacks or over the size of such kickbacks from foreign suppliers. As a consequence, the process of having adequate additional generation capacities in place, suffered awfully during the last couple of years which explain the present shortfall of power in contrast to the demand.
All concerned will welcome moves by the Anticorruption Commission (ACC) to unearth the cases of corruption in power sector and try those who were responsible for the same. The ACC authorities should, thus, duly start proceedings against the corrupt officials and others.

A S M Obaidullah
Gulshan, Dhaka