Staff Correspondent
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Wednesday said the people who had spent Taka 20,000 crore in the name of power generation but did not generate a single megawatt of electricity during the regime of the BNP-led government must be tried for plunder of the money.
‘The company owned by the former prime minister’s family installed only electric poles during her tenure but could not produce a single megawatt of power and the people who looted the money will be put on trial. The law will take its own course,’ she said at parliament in response to a supplementary question raised by ruling party lawmaker Sagupta Yasmin Emily during the question-answer session.
Hasina, also the ruling Awami League president, said her government was facing serious obstacles in every step in running the country due to brazen politicisation of all sectors by the previous BNP-led government.
‘It is very unfortunate that hundreds of officials of the government, semi-government and autonomous bodies as well as the armed forces were made OSDs (officer on special duty). Many brilliant and efficient officers were denied promotion while partisan people were given promotion on the recommendation of the Hawa Bhaban…,’ she said adding that 22 judges of the High Court were deprived of permanent appointment and replaced by partisan judges.
Hasina told treasury bench lawmaker Kazi Keramat Ali that a committee had been formed to review the cases of those who were repressed, neglected and deprived by the BNP-led government and that their honour and dignity would be restored while cases of those whose service age had expired would also be taken into consideration.
The prime minister denied the allegation made by opposition BNP lawmaker AKM Hafizur Rahman that bureaucrats had joined the ‘Janatar Mancha’ and brought out a procession brandishing sticks on the High Court premises ‘in a bid to topple the BNP-led alliance government.’ She said, ‘Janatar Mancha’ was set up to protect the people’s voting right while the bamboo stick procession was taken out at Paltan Maidan, not on the High Court premises.
Hasina said her government was considering whether electricity could be imported from neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bhutan under regional cooperation. It has also a plan to commission the Ruppur Atomic Power Plant.
‘The government has also a plan to produce electricity from confluences of rivers and set up new plants including atomic power, hydro-electricity, wind and solar power to reach electricity to every household across the country,’ she said responding to supplementary questions from JSD lawmaker Hasanul Huq Inu and opposition chief whip Zainul Abdin Farroque.
To a question from opposition MP Nazim Uddin Ahmed, the prime minister, who is also in charge of the power ministry, said under a short-term plan, 176 MW of electricity would be added to the national grid by next June, 960 MW by June 2012 under a mid-term plan and 2,135 MW by 2014 under a long-term plan.
Courtesy of www.newagebd.com
