The government has formed a seven-member committee to make recommendations on merger of the Board of Investment (BOI) and the Privatisation Commission in order to slash state expenditure.
The two agencies have earned notoriety for ineffectiveness over the years and the government has no choice but to amalgamate those, said a senior official of the cabinet division, adding the division would go for the merger after receiving recommendations from the committee.
The cabinet division issued a circular on April 30 for forming a seven-member merger proposal preparation committee headed by Additional Secretary M Mainuddin. The other six was to come from the Privatisation Commission, BOI, public administration division, Prime Minister’s Office and cabinet division.
According to the circular, the committee would enact a new law on merger of the two agencies, submit a report within three months and would prepare a coordinated administrative structure.
In the first week of April, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sent a letter to the cabinet division which said merger of the two agencies would be good for the development of the country’s investment and business sectors and asked the cabinet division to take necessary steps.
Hasina is the ex officio chairman of the two bodies.
The BOI and the Privatisation Commission were supposed to play a pivotal role in attracting foreign and local investments in the country but failed to do so in the past two years, official sources said, adding that officials of the agencies were now sitting idle.
The Privatisation Commission officials, however, said the ministries and divisions did not pay heed to the suggestions of the two bodies which was why they could not work to attract investments. They said both the bodies had to wait for Prime Minister’s intervention in most cases.
For long, there have differences between ministries and the Privatisation Commission regarding privatisation of state-owned enterprises under the ministries. The commission has always alleged that the ministries have never taken any initiative to ensure profits for the firms that have been operating at a loss.
In 1993, the government formed the Privatisation Board which was turned into the Privatisation Commission in 2000. At present, a total of 70 officials and workers work at the commission
Although the government spent Tk17 crore in the last four years, no public firms were privatised during the period.
The BOI, on the other hand, was established in 1989 to grow local and foreign investments in the country. The board began its journey with 495 employees and of them, 359 posts now lie vacant.
According to a World Bank study, the private sector investment declined by 1.2% in 2013 and reaching 7.2% growth rate as per the government’s target in the current fiscal is at risk.
According to the BOI, investments rose a little in last January but went down by Tk30 billion in February.
