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Nearly 6,000 Bangladeshi workers in Kuwait have been on strike since Sunday in protest against non-payment of, and unlawful deductions from, their salaries, so says a report of the private news agency United News of Bangladesh that New Age front-paged on Tuesday. According to the report, the workers, who are on the payroll of two cleaning companies, have not been paid their salaries for the past two months. Moreover, the two companies, the workers allege, have been pressuring them to pay the insurance and residency fees. Evidently, very little has changed since the Kuwaiti government decided, in the wake of the July 28 demonstration by migrant workers, mostly Bangladeshis, that the private sector would have to increase the minimum wage for workers to 40 Kuwaiti dinars per month and also bear the workers’ insurance, housing and health expenditures.
   The attitude the authorities in the oil-rich Gulf state has traditionally displayed towards the migrant workers could very well be described as disdainful indifference, if not downright hostility. Such apathy or antipathy tends to suggest that the Kuwaiti authorities refuse to recognise that the migrant workers are not their paid-up slaves and that the modern Kuwait they showcase to the world has been built on the blood and sweat of these migrant workers. It also betrays their seeming disregard for the international conventions that guarantees the migrant workers protection from discrimination and violation of rights. Hence, albeit shocked, we are not quite surprised that the Kuwaiti government has been slow to take the exploitative companies to task for not adhering to the rules it itself has laid down.
   What has, however, surprised us is the indifference and ineptitude the interim government of Bangladesh has put on display in dealing with the issue. In the wake of the July 28 demonstration in Kuwait, one of the first things that it did was issue a statement, which contained a veiled threat to the workers. Then, as hundreds of Bangladeshi workers were deported one after the other, many of them wearing torn and bloodstained clothes, and bearing marks of injury all over their body, the government hardly raised a voice of protest, nor did it file any formal complaint with the Kuwaiti authorities, let alone bring the issue to the notice of the International Labour Organisation or the United Nations, although there were glaring evidence that the rights of the deported workers had been violated on more counts than one.
   Moreover, during the ongoing strike in Kuwait, Bangladeshi workers have once again stated that our mission there has not acted on their complaints. The workers who had earlier been deported from Kuwait also complained that our mission in Kuwait had done nothing to help them, even after they were tortured and harassed by the Kuwaiti law enforcers and then sent home with nothing. This is completely unacceptable.
   We do not know whether there was any official inquiry into the allegation of non-cooperation levelled against the staff of the Bangladesh mission by the migrant workers. If there was, we demand that the finding of the inquiry should be made public. Most importantly, we demand that the interim government should immediately raise the issue with the Kuwaiti authorities, and have them address and redress the grievances of the striking Bangladeshi workers in Kuwait. By no means should the government’s indifference and ineptitude lead once again to further misery for the workers.

Institutional changes key
to conserving forests

Ruthless corruption leading to massive depletion of forest resources is an existential threat to the sustainability of the country’s environment. A forest represents, besides environmental sustainability, prevention of disasters like flood and cyclone and fertility of the soil, as well as economic well-being of a vast section of people who trade on forest products. A series of recent reports of corruption, which almost amounted to sell-out of forest resources, on the part of forest officials have given a new urgency to an old problem. Environmentalists and civil society are gravely perturbed. Although corruption in this sector is well-known and some individuals have been accused and punished – 268 persons were punished in six years – no institutional measures have been adopted to revamp the whole system and destruction of forests continues, even if on a scale smaller than before. Estimates say that the country’s forest cover is diminishing by more than 2 per cent annually.
   Against this backdrop, a roundtable organised by the Berlin-based Transparency International Bangladesh recently revealed that timber worth Tk 150 crore has been smuggled out from the Sundarbans every year. Forest lands measuring 2,70,57.98 acres are under illegal occupation. Another stunning disclosure was that the last chief conservator of forests who was charged with corruption and dismissed had paid Tk 1.10 crore as bribe to obtain the post, which suggests that it is viewed as a lucrative post given the opportunity for corruption it provides. Also, if legitimate timber collectors have to pay bribe to forest officials, they will naturally over-extract to compensate themselves. There is a foul network of venality which has a snowball effect. As a beginning, recruitment, posting and transfer of forest officials should be under a transparent process. The pay, status and eligibility criteria of forest employees should be revised and updated and knowledge of environment should be an essential component of a forest employee’s training and eligibility. Specialised cadre service for environment may be introduced.
   When the Forest Act was promulgated in 1865, conservation was not an overweighing concern and the objective of the Act was only to regulate the exploitation of forest resources and collection of revenue. That mindset is far removed from a commitment to go all out to conserve the shrinking forests. The law needs to be reviewed in light of present-day problems. While corruption must be dealt with firmly, institutional changes designed to promote a new outlook should be carried out. At the same time public awareness should be heightened. A community approach to conservation should be taken. We would also suggest that members of the forest-dwelling ethnic minorities who know the forest better than the others should be involved in conservation efforts.

TWO years ago on August 26, a citizens’ platform led the locals to take to the streets protesting against a proposed open pit coalmine by a British mining company. The National Committee for the Protection of Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, led a procession of some 70,000 people from around the Phulbari township protesting against Asia Energy’s project that would see most of them become landless. Law enforcement agencies opened fire on the reasonably peaceful assembly just as it was about to break at the end of the day’s programme. Three people were killed, dozens were injured either by gunshot or when the law enforcers charged batons. What followed has become one of the celebrated instances of popular resistance leading to an agreement between the people of Phulbari and the government of the day. Like most other popular movements, the events of Phulbari Day was actually a culmination of almost a year’s campaign and mass awareness programmes undertaken by the citizens’ platform, popularly known as the Oil Gas Committee.
   The local inhabitants found that this mining company gave out contradictory and sometimes erroneous information. They had little idea that the coalmine would gobble up their lands and that they would have to be relocated and begin life afresh. Although Asia Energy claimed to have conducted consultations with a few thousand households, only a few people admitted to having spoken to their representatives and refused to acknowledge those meetings as ‘consultations’ in which they had apparently agreed to the establishment of a coalmine in the area.
   Misgivings still remain and a report published in the New Nation on August 20 does not do much allay them. Neither does a column by Mohammad Nurul Islam, a member of the coal policy drafting committee, published in Prothom Alo on August 4. Both the pieces relate to the finalised coal policy that has now been submitted for approval by the council of advisers. The report, citing sources in the Energy Division and those present at the meeting of the council in Chittagong last week, states that there were strong differences among the advisers over the amount of royalty and land acquisition issue. Apparently, it was the contention of some of the advisers that the recommended 13 per cent royalty was high and private quarters would not be interested to invest with such a high rate. Recommendations regarding the method of mining, rehabilitation of the dislocated inhabitants of the mine area and land acquisition also featured in the discussion. The policy was eventually sent back to the Energy Division with a recommendation from the council to shorten it and remove ambiguities, following which it might again be placed for approval in December.
   In his column, Nurul Islam, a professor of the Institute of Appropriate Technology of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, states plainly that if the coal policy is approved by the council of advisers as it is, it would undermine national interests and favour the mining companies. He goes on to make several recommendations.
   The initial proposal by Asia Energy, now Global Coal Management, in 2005, according to which Bangladesh would receive only six per cent royalty from extracted coal, was controversial and strongly criticised by different quarters. The misgivings would not appear unfounded given the context and process through which the Asia Energy project has come about.
   Although the stipulated royalty for open pit coalmine was fixed at 20 per cent by the law prevailing till December 1995, the Bureau of Mineral Development entered into an agreement with BHP Billiton in August 1994 settling on a royalty rate of just six per cent for an open pit mine in Phulbari. Just one month before, the bureau had entered into another agreement with Petrobangla for Barapukuria at a royalty of 20 per cent. This was the first instance of irregularity betraying machinations in favour of a foreign investor.
   The relevant law was modified in December 1995 stipulating six per cent royalty for open pit and five per cent for shaft mining of coal. When the BHP handed over their contract to Asia Energy, the government was not notified in due time.
   The royalty rate remains an issue even today as both the report and Nurul Islam’s column points out. He recommends that this rate should be fixed at 15 per cent. But the council of advisers, according to the report, deemed 13 per cent to be too high. M Tamim, the special assistant to the chief adviser in charge of the energy ministry, however, pointed out that in other countries taxes are much higher than in Bangladesh and argued that the proposed rate was justified.
   In its feasibility study, Asia Energy proposed that the open pit mine would to take up some 65 square kilometres although the prevailing law stipulated that it should not be more than eight square kilometres.
   Once Asia Energy’s initial proposal came under fire from even the bureaucrats, particularly those heading the energy and mineral resources divisions of the energy ministry in 2005, there was a largely unanimous recommendation that it would be assessed under a coal policy that would be formulated. Since then, there has been little talk of a comprehensive energy policy or a mining policy encompassing all the different aspects.
   The first draft was prepared and finalised on December 1, 2005 and a second draft by January 23 the following year. The two were made public and discussed. Both the drafts appeared as if they had been formulated in such a manner so as to accommodate the proposals of Asia Energy and the Indian Tata group, which was at that time vying for an open pit mine in Barapukuria as part of its $3 billion investment proposal in Bangladesh. The drafts allowed for substantial coal exports and projected such a level of extraction for which there would not be sufficient demand in the local market. The high rate of coal extraction was advocated in order to ‘ensure energy security’ for the country but would have eventually meant export of large amounts of coal.
   The drafts were duly criticised but subsequent drafts still retained provisions facilitating exports and coal extraction in an open pit method of mining without concrete safeguards for adverse environmental impacts or rehabilitation of the local inhabitants that include a few thousand people of ethnic minority communities. The coal policy went through six drafts till June 2007 when a high-powered committee was formed with former BUET vice-chancellor Abdul Matin Patwary as chairman. The Patwary Committee, comprising eight members, was charged with analysing the sixth draft and finalising the coal policy.
   Interestingly, this committee did not include Nurul Islam on some vague ground, but the members co-opted him into it nonetheless. The sixth version of the policy, dated June 21, 2007, was made available on the internet and public opinion was sought on it. This version remains the only one available in the public domain. Although it was put in the public domain claiming more openness, the subsequent versions were never made available. The seventh version that the Patwary Committee finalised also went through a relatively transparent and apparently participatory process with members of the media present at the meetings and different interested quarters welcome to make their submissions and deliberations. The seventh draft was submitted to the secretary for energy and mineral resources in January 2008. Since then the energy division has been working on the draft and, according to Nurul Islam, has changed the draft for the worse.
   It appears that the draft coal policy began with a text heavily biased towards private investment and facilitating large margins of profit for the mining companies. Ideally, there should not be a problem with the private investor making large margins but not at the cost of national interests or doing away with all kinds of binding safeguards to protect the environment and livelihoods of thousands of people who would be displaced. But the process was such that with every draft the interest of the private quarters were diluted a little and provisions tweaked around a little to allow marginal benefits to Bangladesh. The Patwary Committee, therefore, had a huge task on its hand to turn the entire draft around and produce one that favoured national interests over anything else.
   Given the controversy and criticisms, the committee members went out of their way to specify a number of provisions and even stipulated the constitution of the coal development committee. This appears to be the main complaint against them now, that they went beyond their mandate and produced something that is more like a policy and act put together. It should have been appreciated that the committee did extra work just to ensure all the bones of contention were covered. Now it seems, however, that the final draft will go through another round of modifications.
   It increasingly seems that just because the coal is there, it must be extracted and used. But there is yet to be a thorough cost-benefit analysis. There is yet to be any concrete plan that would duly quell the apprehensions of the local populace by proving that they would end up being better off if the coal mine is established and they are relocated. There is yet to be any analysis about the extent of water table draw down due to continuous flushing out of groundwater, which could have telling impact on an otherwise food surplus region.
   There is also the consideration that this particular project happens to be related to mineral extraction and that too of fossil fuel. It is a matter of historical and anecdotal experience, as well as being the finding of an academic research by an internal evaluation of the World Bank titled ‘Striking a Better Balance’, that investment in fossil fuel extraction, be it oil, gas or coal, are typically predatory and add little to the overall development of the host economy. In fact, these investments create indirect hindrances to wholesome development and contribute to slower sustainable growth of the recipient or host economies.
   Investments in the gas sector should suffice as learning experiences. None of the two companies have till today compensated for the blowouts that they were responsible for. There is no guarantee that Asia Energy will not follow in their footsteps. That Bangladesh immediately needs to develop its natural resources to meet future and current energy demands cannot be denied. But it cannot be at the cost of food security and livelihoods of thousands of people or irreversible environmental destruction that open pit mines have been proven to cause across the world. There is also the matter of population density that experts often point out. They say there has never been an open pit mine in such densely populated areas like Bangladesh where there are almost 1,100 people per sq km as opposed to three in Canada and Australia, 32 in United States or even 368 in India.
   As far as Phulbari is concerned and as far as Asia Energy is concerned, the local populace will renew their pledge on August 26. Their message is a simple one. No to open pit. No to exports. No to foreign companies.