BoI turns into ‘abandoned’ body

Restructuring move stagnant, no meeting in seven months
The Board of Investment, the government’s investment promotion agency, has virtually turned into an ‘abandoned’ organisation for lack of proper attention and serious manpower shortage when investment climate is plagued by the crisis of infrastructures.
The board, headed by the prime minister as its chairman, has not held any meeting to settler pending issues such as restructuring and finalisation of organogram, after the assumption of office by the Awami League-led government, sources in the board said. It held its last meeting in November 2008.
The prime minister’s office, which regulates the activities of the investment board, is yet to take any decision on the strategic plan inclusive of restructuring of the office of the board and an organogram for giving fresh appointment to quality manpower as proposed by a lender-driven organisation and endorsed in principle by the interim government.
The immediate past executive chairman of the board, Kamal Uddin, said he had written to the prime minister’s office for holding a meeting of the board and expressed the hope that ‘the board would be right on track once a new executive chairman is appointed’. Kamal, a secretary, has recently been made office on special duty or OSD euphemistic coinage for dumping posting.
Constituted in 1989, the board is currently being run with about 180 employees while it has only a handful of officers to deal with issues of its mandated function — investment promotion and regulations. The pending organogram, prepared by consultants of Bangladesh Investment Climate Fund, has proposed a manpower size of 230, mostly officers.
‘The BoI’s current performance as an IPA [investment promotion agency] is constrained by a chronic lack of quality staff with the necessary expertise to carry out basic IPA functions,’ noted the strategic plan and proposed appointment of quality manpower from private and pubic sector with higher payments.
A key issue of it is the proposed wing of ‘Invest Bangladesh’, splitting from the regulatory component of the board, to promote investment by pursuing the potential foreign investors to come and visit in Bangladesh.
Sources close to the prime minister’s office said the officials concerned were hesitant in approving the concept of ‘Invest Bangladesh’ of the strategic plan in view of what they felt lavish approach to investment promotion. The strategic plan’s recommendations include ‘identifying high quality commercial office space with modern facilities in an accessible location. Invest Bangladesh division’.
‘The Board of Investment has become an abandoned organisation as nobody cares for us although the country’s investment climate has deteriorates in spite of assumption of office by an elected government,’ a high official of the investment board told New Age.
Asked how to promote investment with problems of infrastructure, the official said the shortage in infrastructures was also an opportunity for Bangladesh to attract both local and foreign investments in infrastructure building, including setting up power plants.
The function of the investment board remains stagnant at a time when investment proposals forwarded by local and foreign investors for setting up new industries marked significant decline during initial months of the present government. During the January-April period this year, the country has received investment proposals worth $398 million, which is less than one-third of the proposals in value during the corresponding period in the past year.
Asked how to increase investments given the constraints, Hossain Khaled, former president of Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said, ‘What the government needs to give is the right signal. There is no scarcity of investors’ money but the government must take initiative to attract them by providing necessary incentives and environment of confidence.’

Courtesy of NewAgebd