What came up in a recent Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD)'s observation on recent fuel price hike came to our attention.
Despite, the country's chaotic fuel market largely linked to a global crisis, experts have pointed fingers to a top-down domestic mismanagement.
Their findings rightly questions, whether a syndicate within the BPC is involved with sweeping corruption in manipulating fuel prices.
According to a number of media reports, experts and think- tanks have said that recent price hike could have been easily avoided - had profits made by the BPC of Tk 46,858 crore in recent years would have been rightly used to cover losses incurred in the past 6 months. Moreover, the government earned Tk 8,540 crore in duty and taxes from the BPC in the last fiscal year and is expecting to get tax revenue worth Tk 9,251 crore this year.
BPC earlier said that profits were spent on or invested in various development works, but same in line with CPD we find it to be a bizarre claim.
BPC earned at least Tk 46,000 crore, according to government sources since 2015 and spent only Tk 9,214 crore on 11 self-funded development projects, so where have rest of the profit gone?
The media has reported that BPC has at least Tk 25,254 crore in different government and private banks as Fixed Deposit Receipts (FDRs), another question that now comes up, rather involuntarily, who are the beneficiaries of regular interests of these massive FDR schemes?
Understandably, if the government wanted to keep fuel prices unchanged, it could have either slashed taxes or used the profits as a subsidy. Why had the burden been passed on to ordinary consumers by impacting transportation cost, agricultural, industrial and electricity production cost?
BPC has more than enough to explain, and explain convincingly.
On one particular point we are in full agreement with CPD findings and that is - government could have easily avoided recent unprecedented hike in the fuel prices by checking corruption, theft and mismanagement.
However, it is time to introduce a pricing policy and adjust the fuel price through Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission. If our next-door neighbour India can adjust fuel prices depending on the global market, why can't we?
We draw urgent attention of the highest political office and seek intervention to quick investigate into all reported corruption to have engulfed BPC. Moreover, those who have triggered people's misery by illegally hiking fuel prices must be brought to book.
There is no scope to ignore or reject the latest CPD findings on the manifest organized chaos prevailing within the BPC.
