bd EnergY LinK

While the government would probably take until 2021 to consider that option, they should begin importing gas from the surplus world market to operate the state-owned power plants starved of fuel. Many people as exporters or shopkeepers would be too willing to pay more but many may not. Nonetheless, a sweeping shift in power generation from an undependable ‘public-private partnership’ to a wholly private can overcome the present energy crisis both in the short- and the long-run.

The leaking gas fields of Bangladesh and constant disruptions to supply prove that contractors chosen by the government were either incapable, or had cheated it, or politics and nepotism decided all energy businesses. Bangladesh gas fields are not only ill-managed but also do not benefit from advanced technologies.

Mainstream economists, environmentalists, policy experts, and politicians always insist that government should play the leading role in energy, and in all matters. Such policy practices have created a vested ruling class and a mass dependent on government. Government, as they perceive, is almost a deity that fulfils all demands of the people, when qualified technocrats advise it and dedicated elected officials run it. Destined are people to submit to this authority for collective deliverance.

The planners advise mobilisation of resources to develop energy. This means high taxes, which is a severe burden on the people. They also instruct the government to borrow capital from foreign governments and non-market institutions. This method has not only failed to develop our energy, or the economy, but also brought in an ugly culture of corruption and inefficiency. It is only rational that a cut in government’s economic authority will minimise corruption but elite experts and elected leaders of the people oppose it.

Our coalfields could be a good source for power but remains bogged down with faulty contracts, and blockades from environmentalists who prefer darkness and poverty to foreign investors utilising our natural resources. Our ‘eco warriors’ and those wary of big neighbours can afford to dwell in Utopias, as they do not live in darkness or in poverty as the people around the coal fields do. Environmental concerns and a likely repeat of an East India Company syndrome run wild in their minds. They hold no faith in laws of the country, if reformed, to punish corporate frauds or in modern technology to clean industrial pollution.

Politicians, in fear of this eco and nationalist lobby, have revealed a magic number of 50 years of reserve gas, or coal, before any export considerations. The Bangladesh economy, if steered by private entrepreneurships, will naturally seek, as the world does, alternate sources of energy including nuclear but if export of gas, or oil, at all takes place, prices will climb to an abnormal peak whenever reserves hit low. The high prices would deter exports, therefore, keeping reserves intact and untouched. Such is pure economic logic if unaltered by government bureaucrats and by the vested ruling class. Contrarily, the government enters into long-term fixed price contracts that do not reflect true gas reserves. The government built few power and fertiliser plants that does not work full time due to gas supply issues. No private enterprise, if operating without the burden of government control, would build a plant without ensuring uninterrupted gas supply.

It is time to test the private sector, foreign or local, under an environment of firm law and order, to invest in Bangladesh’s energy sector to fulfil market demand for power. Undeniably, private enterprise would be more competent with their expertise and resources to supply non-stop gas, or coal, for our power. The government has failed and should no longer be in it. Gas reserves could be higher and its utilisation more efficient if private producers were discovering, conserving, or even importing gas for our kitchen, factories, fertiliser, and power plants.

Under a setting of a free market in energy, prospective private investors in Bangladesh would be free to negotiate with people on whose land they would choose to drill or excavate. For a successful outcome, as in any businesses in free environments, there will be negotiations with people for corporate shares, jobs, or a premium price for the use or purchase of their lands. Presently, government owned or authorised private operators simply evict people and often coercively. The ruling class benefits itself at the expense of the vast poor who stay dependent on the government to meet their humble needs. The inhabitants in the area do not benefit from wealth underneath their lands, which is unjust, exploitative, and a denial of their natural economic rights.

A government plan should only formulate rules that relate to health, safety, forgery, and, indeed, the environment. It will provide the conditions of economic development as property rights, personal security, minimum taxes, and freedom to trade or invest. Governments should meddle least in the affairs of private enterprise. There will be hordes of energy watchdogs as the media, green activists, local people, lawyers, courts, politicians, and non-government organisations (NGOs) to keep an eye on private enterprise in Bangladesh’s energy.

The opposition to energy in the free sector from green environmentalist on grounds of pollution, or any other, is in reality to prevent the advance of capitalism in Bangladesh. Green environmentalists in the West, in connivance with governments bent on market control and interventions, promote ’sustainable growth’ by ditching today’s use of resources for the distant future. However, by this doctrine, resources will remain unutilised forever, as our future will reserve it for their future. Many, however, reason that a coterie in the industrial West do not want world’s natural resources depleted but kept reserved for their industries only.

To meet energy needs of 150 million people, the private entrepreneurs, who are the unfailing engine of development, must wrestle for their right to produce power without government.