How is that?
Two news items published in the daily Prothom Alo dated 14-12-09 have drawn my attention. One news item is that the shipping minister, one MP of Chittagong and chairman of Chittagong port authority have gone to India for a visit in connection with discussion/ negotiation with a private agency of India for establishment of specialized hospital in joint venture with Chittagong port authority in Chittagong port area. The expenditure of the visit will be met from training budget of the port authority for which an amount of taka nine lakh has been withdrawn. For this expenditure the shipping ministry has given approval . In this connection, earlier an eleven- member team of the shipping ministry visited India and discussed the matter with Mr. Devi Sheti, a renowned cardiologist and in exchange only a two-member team from India made a visit to Bangladesh.
The other news report is that an eleven-member high powered team of the ministry of power and energy has gone to London to stage Road Shows to attract the investors to invest in the coming power generation projects, including construction of one LNG terminal in Chittagong. Two more similar Road Shows will be held, one in Singapore and the other in New York in January'10 .The expenditure for these Road Shows has been estimated to be taka one crore. The expenditure will be met from the fund developed from the grant given by the foreign gas/ oil companies working in Bangladesh and maintained with Petro-Bangla for the development of local human resource/ manpower. It is further learnt from the news that there is no expenditure from this head of account for development of local manpower and as such a huge amount is lying idle in this head of account for a long time.
It is very much natural that expenditure is necessary for such visits from the govt. exchequer. But the question is why this expenditure is to be met from the training head of account. Surprisingly, it happened in both the cases. We all know that without training proper manpower cannot be developed. It is also known to everybody that there is a dearth of proper manpower in every field and as a result we are dependent on foreign assistance. With this view in mind, such a fund has been developed for imparting training to the local manpower for efficient running of the enterprises. But unfortunately this fund has been kept unutilised for a long time. How is that?
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