Power sector: Adviser of IMED report suspended

The Ministry of Public Administration has suspended Additional Secretary SM Hamidul Haque who was an adviser to a much-talked-about IMED report on power sector.

Hamidul was the director general of sector-1 of the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division.

His suspension comes two days after one of the authors of the report -- Deputy Secretary Mohammad Mahidur Rahman -- was suspended.

Hamidul was made an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) on Sunday and Mahidur on Monday. OSD is considered a punishment post.

The report, which was uploaded on the IMED website on May 25, called the practice of paying capacity charges to power plants a "model of robbery" and is a reflection of ill-motivated contracts.

After a few media outlets ran reports on the IMED report -- titled "Research Report on Implementation Progress of Projects in Power Sector" -- the planning ministry division quietly revised the paper, deleting the section that was critical of the power sector's business model.

A three-member probe body led by Additional Secretary Gazi Md Saifuzzaman was formed on July 11 to investigate the matter.

The committee was asked to submit the report in seven working days.