Secretary General of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and former lawmaker Professor Mia Golam Porwar has issued the following statement on 28 February 2020 protesting the decision of increasing water and power tariff unlawfully and illogically.

“The government has irrationally increased the power and water tariffs in a bid to intensify mass crisis. Ignoring the objection of the businessmen, general consumers and politicians, the authority has hiked both the tariff of water and power. This time, retail power tariff hiked by 5.3 pc and wholesale power tariff hiked by 8.4 percent.

During the last public hearing, all concerned quarters opposed the decision of power price hike. They recommended that there is no need to increase power tariff if the oil-based powerplants are repaired. While the business costs are being increased due to various reason. Severe crisis is also prevailing in the production sector. So, this latest decision of hiking power tariff would cause more sufferings. It could be avoided by controlling system loss, stealing and corruptions.

The government has to pay more for buying power from oil-based power plants. The authority is intentionally operating these expensive oil-based and quick rental power plants and as such the general people are becoming compelled to pay all these fines. Instead of repeated power price hike, these expensive power plants should be stopped immediately.

Price of gasoline is being reduced worldwide. If this situation continues, oil-based power production will be reduced as well. Under such circumstances, there is no logical point of hiking power price right now.

The ministers and the ruling party MPs are often talking about national development. But they are paving way for corruption in the name of these developments. But regrettably, the people have to pay for such ill-practices.

I am urging the concerned authorities to withdraw their decision of hiking power and water tariffs illogically and irrationally.