Unused SoE land divestment
Privatization Commission finalises deal papers
The Privatization Commission on Tuesday finalised a document to allow state-owned enterprises to strike deals to divest their unused land to private investors.
The commission finalised the document at a meeting which its chairman Mirza Abdul Jalil presided over in its office on the day. The decision is significant as the document will be sent to a high-powered committee which is now working on the government’s plan to lease unused SoE land out to private investors.
The prime minister’s economic affairs adviser Mashiur Rahman is leading the committee set up early July.
The government wanted unused and extra land of SoEs to be divested before the next general elections to increase private investments in the country where land is scarce and a few plots are available.
The commission’s meeting also selected nine chartered accounting firms which will audit more than three dozen SoEs, Jalil told reporters after the meeting.
The commission has identified 1,288 acres of ‘unused and additional land’ owned by 39 state-owned enterprises. It identified the land after a survey on the SoEs located mainly in Dhaka and Chittagong.
Nine closed industries under the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation, three closed units of the Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corporation and 10 sugar mills of the Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation were covered by the survey.
The commission’s chair, also a member of the committee, told New Age that about 250 new industrial units could be set up on the land that have remained unused for so long.
Successive governments have privatised SoEs since 1993 on the pretext that they were incurring losses.
Economist Anu Muhammad said that the county’s experience of privatisation of SoE land in line with the recommendations of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund was bitter.
‘Private operators have even been found turning the land of state-owned mills into real estate projects,’ he said.
He said that the latest plan by the government to lease SoE land was giving a chance to encroachers to grab public land.
Commission officials said that Mashiur Rahman’s committee was expected to hold a meeting on August 14 to review the situation.
The committee has already sought documents of the amount of loss before and after the closure of the SoEs. It has also asked the authorities concerned to assess the accumulated losses and total liabilities of the SoEs.
The officials said the nine selected chartered accounting firms would complete the task.
The firms selected are A Matin & Co, AT Talukder & Co, Basu Banerjee Nath & Co, MI Chowdhury & Co, Khan Waheb Shafique & Co, Kazi Zahir Khan & Co, KM Akam & Co, Rehman Huq and Nurul Azim & Co.
-With New Age input
