Shun malpractice or face action, minister warns Desco men
Staff Correspondent
State Minister for Power Iqbal Hassan Mahmood has asked officials of Dhaka Electric Supply Company (Desco) to give up 'malpractice' and warned them of proper action for their poor services and involvement in corruption."The overall situation in this sector has gone beyond an acceptable level. Desco could not take off. People have serious reservations about it and I have also received complaints of corruption by its officials," he said. The state minister was speaking as chief guest at the inaugural session of a workshop on "Evaluation of ADB's (Asian Development Bank) Assistance to Bangladesh Power Sector" in Dhaka yesterday, jointly organised by the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources and the ADB. Iqbal said it takes two to three months for Dhaka Electricity Supply Authority (Desa) and Desco to send electricity bills to consumers and then payment of bills also takes time, making the entire process a very lengthy one. "We are living in a situation where bills are collected several months after giving services." Against this backdrop, the government is seriously thinking of giving the responsibility of bill collection to cable operators, who have a good network to do the job, he added. He felt that employees of the Desa and Desco are not serious about bill collection since it is not linked to their salaries. "As the cable operators' income is linked to their survival, we might give them this responsibility and they will get commission for their service." Iqbal said the concept of creating Desa was not wrong but the way it was implemented was definitely wrong. " Desa was formed taking the same bad people from the Power Development Board and it did not have back up support, unlike the Rural Electrification Board." Systems loss in power sector must be reduced to between 10 and 15 per cent, which may be an acceptable level, the state minister said. ADB Country Director Toru Shibuichi said the bank is not satisfied with the present level of systems loss and financial mismanagement in power sector. He said the bank's support to the power sector has been comprehensive, covering generation, transmission and distribution. ADB's 16 public sector loans and one private sector loan total to about US$1.122 billion, he mentioned. Power sector requires one billion dollar investment a year and a major portion of it should come from private sector and other internal sources, Shibuichi said. ADB's Evaluation Specialist and mission leader of Operations Evaluation Department CC Yu made a presentation on 'Evaluation of ADB's Assistance to Bangladesh's Power Sector 1973-2003: An Overview.'
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