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Rejoinder
The Energy Division in a rejoinder to a news headlined "Petrobangla co's autonomy trampled in 10-day span" published on April 17 in The Daily Star said that the formation of the boards of different Petrobangla companies was fully in accordance with the existing rules and regulations and in no way, violated the companies' rights.
It said, "All the companies in the SEE PAGE 11 COL 7 FROM PAGE 1
energy sector are registered under Company Act and shareholders appoint the boards of directors and the appointments are ratified by the Annual General Meeting. In these cases, government is the 100 per cent shareholder of these companies and government also appoints the directors of these boards. Recently, the government has decided that all these companies will be fully autonomous and run under Company Act. There should not be interference from any quarter and accordingly government as shareholder is reconstituting the board.
In this process, these three companies namely Gas Transmission Co. Ltd (GTCL), Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Co. Ltd (RPGCL) and Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Co. Ltd (TGTDCL) have been reconstituted and other companies' boards will be reconstituted soon.
While reconstituting these boards, the government has decided to include the experts in the relevant fields, educationists, representatives from business community and officials of the government and Petrobangla.
The Senior Asstt. Secretaries who have been appointed in two boards are sufficiently experienced and directly involved in the activities of the companies. Moreover, the insertion of Sr. Asstt. Secretaries in the boards is not unprecedented."
Our Reply:
The memorandum and articles of association of these companies clearly mentions "Petrobangla \Government" as the authority to appoint new directors at the "general meeting". Whereas, the rejoinder repeatedly refers to the "Government" as the authority that reconstituted the boards and clearly avoided saying which organ of the government it was. In
addition, Petro-bangla is the shareholder of the nine companies on behalf of the government --not the Energy Ministry. The rejoinder appears to treat Petrobangla as a third party.
The intent of this reconstitution of the boards are clear from the fact that these were done after the April 6 meeting where the Cabinet discussed that interference by other organs of the government into the affairs of the nine companies of Petrobangla had hindered their growth. It decided that both Petrobangla and Energy Ministry would ensure autonomy and financial freedom of these companies.
But the ministry ignored this decision by reconstituting the boards of GTCL, Titas and RPGCL by unilaterally issuing notification on board reshuffles. Petrobangla, which is the direct shareholder, was totally ignored. The 'ratification' at the general meeting does not go along with the spirit of the April 6 decisions. The ministry's intent comes more under question because a special general meeting of Titas was held only about 10 days ago. If the reconstitution of the board was so urgent, it could have been placed there.
The whole process raises many questions -- should the 'government' appoint directors from business groups who have direct business interest in the organisation. The recent appointment in Bangladesh Energy Association raises serious questions of propriety.
The selection of an outside 'expert' as a board member raised further questions.
The Senior Asstt Secretaries may be experienced and efficient. But are they senior enough to become directors? Concern in this regard was expressed in the April 6 Cabinet meeting.