Matin given reins of home ministry

Maj Gen (retd) MA Matin

In an unprecedented shuffle in the administration, Shipping Adviser Maj Gen (retd) MA Matin yesterday was given the charge of the home ministry, which traditionally had been kept in the hands of chief advisers during the rule of past caretaker governments.
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed kept the home ministry under his own jurisdiction since his induction as the head of the current caretaker regime on January 12, 2007, a day after the declaration of the ongoing state of emergency. President Iajuddin Ahmed, who had assumed the office of the chief adviser before Fakhruddin on October 29, 2006, also kept the ministry in his hands.
Previous chiefs of caretaker governments since the system had been constitutionally introduced in 1996, also kept the crucial ministry under their jurisdictions as the ministry plays a pivotal role of maintaining law and order to ensure free and fair elections.
Even the first ever caretaker government formed after the mass upsurge in 1990, overthrowing the autocratic regime of now retired Lt Gen HM Ershad, Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed, the erstwhile chief of the interim government, had the charge of the home ministry, a former adviser to a caretaker government said.
"I don't know what prompted the chief adviser to give the home ministry to another adviser. As far as I can recall, all chief advisers of caretaker governments in the past kept the portfolio of home ministry with themselves," former adviser to the 2001 caretaker government M Hafizuddin Khan told The Daily Star yesterday.
Matin, who is also the chief of the National Coordination Committee on Serious Crimes and Corruption, had been given the charge of the communications ministry first, but the chief adviser recently gave the ministry to newly appointed Adviser Maj Gen (retd) Ghulam Quader.
About the change in his portfolios, former communications adviser Matin yesterday said he does not think that he failed to run the communications ministry well.
"My ministries have been changed through a normal process and it had happened several times earlier too," Matin, a key figure in the reformist interim administration and who also has the charges of the land, the shipping, and the liberation war affairs ministries, told reporters yesterday.
Matin said the task force under the National Coordination Committee is not going into action against the corruption suspects on its last published list at the moment as the government is overloaded with investigations and trials of those who had been on the previous lists.
The chief adviser yesterday also made changes in the portfolios of another adviser and of the three special assistants to the CA in a follow-up to the recent reshuffle in the council of advisers.
Meanwhile, UNB reported that a notification issued by the Cabinet Division said the portfolios of Adviser M Anwarul Iqbal were also changed placing the LGRD and cooperatives, textiles and jute, and the labour and employment ministries under his jurisdiction.
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed redistributed the portfolios of the advisers 'under rule 3(iv) of the Rules of Business 1996', said the notification.
In a separate notification issued by the Cabinet Division the head of the caretaker government announced reshuffling of the portfolios of newly appointed three special assistants to the chief adviser.
The chief adviser redistributed the portfolios of the special assistants to the CA 'in exercise of the powers vested in him under rule 3A (ii) of the Rules of Business 1996', it said.
The new portfolios of the special assistants are as follows: Raja Debashis Roy -- the Chittagong Hill Tracts affairs, and the environment and forest ministries; Brig Gen (Retd) MA Malek -- the post and telecommunications, and the social welfare ministries; and Prof M Tamim -- the Energy and Mineral Resources Division, and the Power Division.
"The orders will be effective immediately," the notification added.