The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

Canceling decisions frequently on flimsy grounds, toying with tender process and finally inordinate delays in decision making are being blamed for putting the country's power sector in the doldrums, especially in this sultry summer.

Experts believe these unexpected reasons are putting the power sector's development into a vicious circle and the present post-1/11 caretaker government is also not being able to get out of this predicament of the power sector. They said it has been a common practice that without inviting three to four times, the PDB cannot finalise any bidder for any power-plant project.

A recent incident of cancellation of a tender, for which the Power Development Board (PDB) spent more than a year, again exposed the similar weakness.

According to official sources, the Advisors Committee on Economic Affairs recently refused to approve a tender for installing a 100MW power plant in Sylhet on the plea that the tender was not invited in due process.

The committee said that the tender was invited under "One Stage, Two Envelop" system, which is not compliant with the Public Procurement Regulations (PPR) 2003. The PPR 2003 provides for "Two Stage, Two Envelop" system.

But PDB sources said when they had proceeded with the tender proposal on "One Stage, Two Envelop" basis, the Power Ministry, the Finance Ministry and finally the Chief Advisor's Office gave their go-ahead with the proposal considering the project as "emergency" one in view of the nagging power crisis.

After receiving the approval, the PDB invited tender in May 2007 and completed all the procedural works to select a bidder to install the 100MW gas-turbine plant under the 150MW combined-cycle project.

It took about a year to pass all the way of approval to reach the Advisors' Committee on Public Purchase.

When the proposal was placed in the meeting of the Purchase Committee, it referred the proposal to the Advisors' Committee on Economic Affairs. The Finance Advisor is the chairman of both the committees.

When the proposal was placed with the Economic Affairs Committee, the committee refused its nod to the proposal, saying that the tender process was not in keeping with the rules.

Now the question has arisen if the Purchase Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee should reject the tender proposal, why the Finance Ministry and the Chief Advisor's office gave their earlier nod to it, on the basis of which the PDB proceeded and spent a year's time.

Now, after the refusal, the PDB has again to invite international tender for the project and it will take at least a year to reach the final stage of approval.

When the PDB placed the proposal with the Purchase and Economic Affairs Committees through power ministry, it was certified (by PDB) that all the process was followed in compliance with the set rules.

This happens to be the fourth time that tender was invited for the Sylhet project as earlier three times the tender had been cancelled after invitation on various reasons.