Toronto test flight: Officials flock to fly
Around 25 to 30 officials of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the civil aviation ministry, and two ruling party lawmakers from the parliamentary body on the ministry will be on Biman's "experimental commercial" flight on the Dhaka-Toronto-Dhaka route on March 26.
This has raised concerns about wasting public money as many of the officials will be going for the same purpose -- monitoring the hiring of a Biman office in Toronto, process of general sales agent appointments and consultation with Transport Canada for operation of the route.
Biman said in a press release that it will inaugurate the experimental commercial flight to the popular destination on March 26.
However, it will take more than two and a half months to operate regular flights on the route, sources at the civil aviation ministry said.
The delegation includes M Mahbub Ali, state minister for civil aviation; Mokammel Hossain, secretary of the ministry; Air Commodore Mridha Md Ekramuzzaman, director, Biman; Moktar Hossain, general manager, Biman; Mohammad Abdul Awal and Syed Shariful Islam, deputy secretaries of the civil aviation ministry.
The Cabinet Division will bear all expenses of the state minister while all expenses, except airfare, of others will be borne by the civil aviation ministry. Biman will bear the expenses of their airfare, according to the government order and no objection certificate of the civil aviation ministry.
The state minister's spouse and their daughter will also accompany him but they will bear their own expenses, according to the civil aviation ministry.
Mohammad Musabbir, assistant personal secretary to the state minister, and Tanbir Ahmed, public relations officer of the ministry, will also be on the flight for the same reasons.
Biman will bear their travel expenses while all other expenses will be borne by the ministry.
Contacted by this newspaper, Md Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh asked why the government undertook a highly expensive visit like this for purposes that can be achieved by much more cost-effective alternative means including the support of the Bangladesh high commission in Canada.
"Even if there were justifiable reasons for the visit, there can be no valid grounds for the state minister and a couple of MPs to undertake a visit like this, which is practically demeaning of the high level of public positions they hold.
"On the other hand, it will be hard for anyone behind this whole initiative to explain what relevance officials like APS and PRO of the minister have to the stated purpose," he said, adding that it was nothing but a "pleasure trip at public expense" and an "embarrassing example of abuse of power".
"Those involved in the decision-making process of the initiative should be held to account," he said.
Biman Managing Director and CEO Dr Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal will also be on the flight.
A top Biman official, preferring anonymity, said around 25 to 30 officials of Biman, civil aviation ministry and two lawmakers are going on the test flight.
The official said irrelevant officials on the flight was nothing but a waste of public money.
It was also alleged that all tickets for the flight were unavailable when Biman started sale of tickets on March 19.
On that day, when correspondents of this newspaper called to book tickets, Biman staffers said the flight was not for "ordinary passengers".
But the Biman MD refuted all those allegations saying they are nothing but propaganda.
"This flight is not a VIP flight. Anyone can buy Biman's ticket on this route at a price of Tk 1,28,000 for round trip on economy class," he said.
When this correspondent called to the Biman call centre yesterday, a Biman staffer said only seven tickets remained and they would cost Tk 90,000 for a one-way trip.
Biman is using Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner to operate flight on this route which will take around 14 hours.
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