Awarding of power and energy projects without tender and that too with impunity under a 2010 act has created wide scope for irregularities and waste of public money, people concerned in the sector fear.
The government is now implementing most of the power and energy sector projects under the Bangladesh Power and Gas Quick Supply (Special Provisions) Act 2010 without conventional tender process and with impunity, betraying its reluctance to go by the Public Procurement Rules or private power generation policy.
Experts said awarding of massive projects bypassing the conventional bidding process had also increased the cost of power and gas which would either be realised from public exchequer or by increasing the price of power and gas.
The Awami League government since January 2009 has signed 45 deals for setting up power plants with a capacity of 5,150 megawatts both in public and private sectors and 18 of those ventures have come into operation, according to statistics provided by the state-run Power Development Board.
Of the implemented 18 power generation ventures with a capacity of 1,458MW, only five projects – two in public sector and three in private sector – were awarded following Public Procurement Rules.
Most of the plants have been set up for short terms, varying between three and five years.
The government also awarded a number of long-term power projects to the private sector, including two recent projects for generation of more than 200MW under independent power producers, bypassing the conventional tender process.
But no big plants have started power generation as yet.
The prime minister’s energy adviser Towfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, however, said that the projects had made progress, although not visible yet, and the government was implementing them under the 2010 act to ensure an expeditious respite from ongoing power and energy crisis.
BD Rahmatullah, former director general of Power Cell, told New Age that the
private power generation policy as well as the Public Procurement Rules made tendering process mandatory.
But the government enacted the 2010 special act making provisions for awarding power and gas projects without conventional tender process and giving indemnity to the policymakers and officials concerned for any irregularities in the process, he said.
‘It is true there is room for corruption also in the conventional tender process, but the scope is much wider in the process of awarding projects without tenders,’ he added.
Civil society activist Anu Mohammad, also a professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University, told New Age that the special act created chances for the players in the power and energy sector to indulge in corruption.
He said it would benefit a few businessmen, politicians and government officials leaving sustainable energy security in uncertainty and causing drainage of resources.
The government adopted the quick-fix measures bypassing tender process on the plea that it takes a long time to complete tender process and implement projects.
Mustafizur Rahman, executive director of Centre for Policy Dialogue, said such activities in the power and energy sector would cause cost escalation, an adverse impact on GDP growth and financial burden on the consumers.
He called for increasing efficiency of the bureaucracy in economic management in order to make the bidding process quicker.
Most of the big power projects in the public sector like a 450MW combined cycle power project at Siddhirganj and 150MW projects in Sirajganj, Sylhet, Chandpur and Bhola are yet to be initiated.
Different national dailies have reported that most of the bidding processes are taking a long time due to interference by powerful quarters in the government in the bidding process to award the job to their chosen ones.
A PDB official said that most of the projects awarded without tender, quick rental power projects and a few IPPs in particular, were not in the power board’s plan, rather they were imposed by the government’s policymakers.
‘The PDB is failing to implement its planned projects, regular power plants in particular, as it has to pay more attention to implementing these unsolicited and unplanned power projects,’ he added.
Implementation of the three big power projects with a total capacity of 1,000 MW – two units of a power plant with a capacity of 341 MW each at Bibyana and the third one with a capacity of 335 MW at Meghnaghat – under Independent Power Producer scheme, has become uncertain due to financial ambiguity of the lone entrepreneur.
A similar situation prevails in the energy sector projects of the state-run oil, gas and mineral resources corporation Petrobangla.
While at least four big projects are yet to be implemented, the Petrobangla with its subsidiaries has decided to implement a number of big projects under the 2010 act, said a government official in the energy sector.
The projects are: two gas process plants at Titas gas field and drilling of six gas wells in two gas fields, procurement of materials amounting to Tk 1,000 crore for construction of three mega gas transmission lines – 138- kilometre Bibyana-Dhanua gas transmission line of 36 inch diameter, 91- kilometre Maheshkhali-Anwara gas transmission line of 30 inch diameter, and 61-kilometre Ashuganj-Bakhrabad gas transmission line of 30 inch diameter, procurement of an exploration drilling rig and installation of a floating terminal in the Bay of Bengal for import of liquefied natural gas.
The Petrobangla has also decided to drill five more gas wells in addition to the previous five out of six gas wells and set up two compressor stations by Russian gas company, Gazprom bypassing tender process.
Earlier in 2009, cancelling the bidding process, the government gave work order to Chevron, an international oil company, to supply and set up a gas compressor station.
Gas Transmission Company Limited, a subsidiary of Petrobanga, on Friday signed eight agreements of about Tk 1.5b with a few local and foreign firms for setting up two gas compressor stations and two gas transmission lines which were awarded through tender process.
According to the plan, Petrobangla and its subsidiaries decided to buy and set up two more gas process plants in two different gas fields under the special act.
Source: newagebd.com/newspaper1
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