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“Private enterprises of world are driven by greed” |
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October 1, 2000
Dhaka,--- – A junior minister yesterday said reforms in power sector emphasising by development partners during the last two decades were limited to the institutional issues ignoring exploration from available resources. “In the light of our experience of last two decades, I may say reform emphasised by our development partners and undertaken by us have been mostly limited to the institutional issues,” said State Minister for Planning Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir. He was addressing the inaugural function of a 3-day workshop on “Power Sector Reform in Bangladesh” at a local Hotel, jointly organised by the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources and The World Bank. World Bank country director Frederick T Temple also addressed the function with Power Division cell director general KM Golam Maula in the chair. “We did not explore production of power from coal, wind, hydro and solar sources and are not doing so,” Alamgir said. He said it was not recognised that the institutional constraints need to be addressed without freezing further investment in the power sector. “We also erased from our agenda, possible regional cooperation in these fields that would have yielded high returns to all concerned.” He said in the conventional as well as nuclear and unconventional generation of power, institutional cooperation was found either missing or grossly inadequate and costly. As of now, he said, it is primarily gas based, somewhat oppressively generated at places by imported oil, marginally coming from hydel pressure, and not using coal, wind solar or nuclear power. “Power generation should be based on all available economic resources of the country.” Our coal reserve is reportedly significant but not yet put into use for generating power, said the minister adding that the hydel potential is reportedly limited but definitely not fully surveyed in regional or riparian context. “In our attempt to diversify, we find not very economic or readily acquirable technology,” he said. In the field of power production, he said, the private enterprises of the international community, driven by forces of profit and greed, seems to have obfuscated the fact that the world’s prosperity grew basically on reasonably free availability of knowledge and technology. The intellectual property rights should not have been used to limit entitlements of all peoples over intellectual attainments and outputs, as we find these days, he added. He said within the domestic ambit inefficiency inherent largely in state monopoly operating in generation, transmission and distribution yielding insufficient investment, load shedding and system loss. While fighting the abuses and abusive effluents arising from this institutional constraints, development partners rather inattentive to the need that further real continuous investment should be simultaneous with the home spun and effective reforms directed to address the well identified institutional issues, he said. “In a world of espoused free trade and competition, let me say loudly and clearly and beyond doubt, that the reform agenda will be incomplete, unless and until all these elements are recognised, taken into consideration and acted upon,” he said. He reaffirmed and reiterated the government’s determination to go ahead with controlling institutional issues as the country needs additional 15,000MW power to cover all areas and people. “We have dismantled the state monopoly in generation, are unbundling the monolithic utility in terms of cost and profit centres and have been levering out the loss in the system through private participation and public accountability,” he said. World Bank country director Temple said accelerated power sector development is critical to achieve the country’s over-arching goal to reduce poverty due to reliable power supplies, essential to support economic growth as a prerequisite for poverty reduction. He identified malfunctioning power system, extremely poor financial performance by the power utilities, system loss, theft and corrupt practices for lack of reliable power supply. He said the national budget has to support the sector, at the rate of about US$300 million a year, more than the health budget. Temple pointed out a threat for future investment in gas supply, on which power generation depends, for inability to collect revenues, low pricing of gas and delays in paying for gas by the power utilities. “…there is desperate need to dramatically improve the performance of Bangladesh’s power system,” he said. Temple further said there is a tendency to focus on power supply constraints and emphasise the need for new generation, and contended that the power system’s real problem is distribution. “Bangladesh’s power system must become commercially viable if it is to attract the investment funds necessary for its expansion. It’s simple,” said the World Bank country director. Making his observations about World Bank Group support for the power sector, he said development partners have reduced their support to it since 1980s due to the sector’s deteriorating technical and financial performance.
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