The New Nation - Internet Edition

Sheikh Monirul Islam

It may sound very unusual, but when you hear from the horse's mouth, the special assistant to the chief adviser of the military backed caretaker government Mr. Mahbub Jamil, and saying that he had no choice but to hand pick a retired Air Commodore from Bangladesh Air Force, who has no experience running a commercial organization…we find it difficult to convince ourselves how correct is this man in decision making? On one hand he tries to justify that Zahed Quddus is definitely a qualified person as CEO of Biman, then again he continues saying that once Biman find a strategic partner, Zahed Quddus will be replaced by a professional CEO as per business policy. This is a very radical and very much self contradictory statement.

Out of ten (10) criteria for selecting a new CEO for Biman this time Air Commodore (Rtd) Zahed Quddus does not even fulfill two (2); on the other hand a very brilliant candidate who applied for the position, Nazmun Noor, not only meet all the ten (10) criteria, he is a MBA from IBA and last served Biman as DGM of its market research wing. He joined Biman as direct executive in the early eighties and was captain of Bangladesh national cricket team fondly known as Robin. It is unfortunate that Biman management did not even find his resume worth of short listing! No matter what people may say, I agree fully with what Dr. Momin said about his correct decision in removing 2000 jobs from Biman employment. It was absolutely a correct decision not only to bring back the efficiency with in the work force; it also helped Biman to recover financially, although many raised questions about the corrupt ones staying onboard remaining virtually un-touched!

Corruption took it's deepest root with in Biman from the time of Ershad and I am in a position to prove how an ex-military officer who was director of engineering at the time, received 7 lac taka as kick back, which he spend at the time to buy an apartment. Millions were looted buying DC-10s, selling F-27s after refurbishing them spending millions; it was all going on as usual business. A group of young businessmen formed a syndicate and Biman was looted left & right, right under the nose of everyone; no one could do anything…such was the mighty of the power! Today it is the same group of people, who has a huge stake to loose if Biman is run professionally, is the biggest block of resistance bringing reforms with in Biman. Once of my closest friend is a member of this syndicate group, which has 14 member and I am sure everyone in the business world know who are they…but they stayed un-touched. Once again such is the mighty of the power of money. I was not surprised when my friend once said as long as we are here, no one will be able to bring reforms to the way Biman is run! By the way my friend mentioned to me that his average income from Biman was 1.2 million US$ every month and that was in the year 1998.

In recent days special task force investigated Biman and unfortunately the report never saw the day light. Rumour has it that people close to the present day government officials are too close to those people, syndicate members are highly connected and shares from the ill gotten resources has been to virtually everyone's pocket; so protecting those people are duty to the loyal ones. National interest has lesser priority!

A/Cmdr (rtd) Zahed Quddus was Chairman of civil aviation (CAAB) and it is during his tenure that ZIA was down graded due to its overall safety record by ICAO. A B707 cargo aero plane, which belonged at the time to a local cargo operator, had an engine failure during take-off, narrowly escaped from disaster…was neither investigated properly, nor anyone punished, why? In recent days ZIA became heaven by many scrupulous cargo operators who has air operator license (AOL) from CAAB who are simply making some quick bucks by merely sailing their call signs. This is a dangerous phenomenon which may become threat to not only our national security; it may bring disaster for CAAB.

Over the year a healthy civil aviation policy formulation was solicited from many professional in the field, but we failed to understand why such moves were not undertaken. Air Operator Licenses were issued by CAAB from time to time and if you closely monitor, you will find no difficulties how these licenses were given to selected group of people. Some time I wonder why we are call third world countries. Only one answer I find, and that is, we as nation are run by third class mentality; otherwise we would not have justify selecting an ex-air force officer to become Chairman of CAAB or MD of Biman, because both are essentially to do with aero-planes!

I heard from reliable sources that weakening Biman is part of a conspiracy by many quarters that make big bucks being agent (GSA) for many international airlines which operates in to our country. Maintaining Biman aircrafts in India is also in the pipeline. Finally, I like to draw the attention of the people who are close to the government or the power centre to look in to these issues with a very open mind and find a solution to correct the mistakes we have done over the years. One thing for sure and I believe everyone will agree that it is the country that must come first…nothing else!