Khalilur, Taiyeb, Akhtar land spots in Biman board

The government has appointed the national security adviser, a special assistant to Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus, and a senior secretary as directors of the state-run Biman Bangladesh Airlines.

They are Khalilur Rahman, national security adviser and high representative for the Rohingya issue, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, special assistant to the chief adviser on ICT, and Akhtar Ahmed, senior secretary of the Election Commission.

In a gazette notification on Wednesday, the civil aviation and tourism ministry said the appointments were made in the public interest and would take effect immediately.

This development, which came less than a month ahead of the February 12 national election, raised questions in the aviation industry.

On August 26 last year, Commerce Adviser Sk Bashir Uddin was made chairman of Biman board while serving as adviser to the civil aviation ministry.

At the time, many raised questions about his appointment as chairman of a company under his own ministry while holding the rank of a minister as an adviser, as it is tantamount to conflict of interest.

The allegations, however, were rejected by the adviser.

Aviation expert Kazi Wahidul Alam told The Daily Star that he is surprised as the government included Khalilur, Taiyeb, and Akhtar as directors of the Biman board at the fag-end of the interim government’s tenure.

“It’s really very surprising why they were made directors. In my view, there might be several agenda of the interim government, including strengthening relations with Boeing, from which Biman is going to buy aircraft.”

He also questioned how rational the appointment of EC Secretary Akhtar was at a time when he is busy with election-related activities.