Rejoinder and our reply
The Power Development Board (PDB) in a rejoinder yesterday to a Daily Star report headlined "Tk 7, 600 crore pillage at PDB since 1971" said the parliamentary standing committee on the energy and mineral resources ministry did not express dissatisfaction at PDB's performance.It said the PDB cleared 942 audit objections only during the last 11 months while the report mentioned only 700 such objections have been cleared so far. The rejoinder added that the amount of Tk 7,600 crore were not robbed by the officials as, in reality, a major chunk of it is outstanding bill. Our Reply We have quoted verbatim the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee, who stated the committee's dissatisfaction. As regards the issue of the 'outstanding' bill of Tk 7,600 crore, we have quoted the audit report on the causes of evaporation of this sum. The audit report held theft, misappropriation, irregular payments and failure of bill collection responsible for the debacle of the power board. We stand corrected that the PDB alone is not responsible for this debacle. The government's poor policy implementation, unwillingness of the higher authorities to punish politically-backed thieves and wrong advice of the donors have also largely contributed to the problem.
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