Govt keeps faith in previous board to steer Biman

The government has kept faith in former Air Force chief Muhammad Enamul Bari as Chairman of Biman Bangladesh Airlines after it posted profit for past two years.

No changes have been brought to the 13-member Biman board of directors announced by the civil aviation and tourism ministry for 2017 on Thursday.

Retired air marshal Bari told bdnews24.com: "Many jobs are yet to be finished. We'll have to improve Biman's image."

"Moreover, Biman is actually a public service. It has to develop. We will keep an eye on this matter," he said.

The senior secretaries to the Finance Division and Prime Minister’s Office, civil aviation and tourism secretary, assistant chief of air staff (operations and training), chief engineer of the Air Force and Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (CAAB) chairman are ex-officio members of the board.

Former secretary Nazrul Islam Khan, former additional secretary Taposh Kumar Roy, BGMEA President Siddiqur Rahman, Supreme Court lawyer Tanjib-ul Alam, and Emerging Resources Limited Managing Director Noor-e-Khoda Abdul Mobin have retained their membership in the board. 

Besides them, Biman Managing Director and CEO AM Mosaddique Ahmed sits on the board.

Biman was turned into a public limited company in a bid to bring it out of continuous losses in 2007. The management was handed over to the board of directors at that time.

The company posted losses of Tk 51.9 million in 2007-8 and Tk 155.7 million in 2008-9. The total loss in the next five years was over Tk 14.35 billion.

It again saw profit in 2014-15. The amount of profit that year crossed Tk 2.72 billion.

Bari said the profit-making trend has continued at the flag carrier.

He stressed the need for bringing order back to Biman. He said the company is prioritising maintaining schedule and good customer service.

Several new aircraft have recently been added to the Biman fleet. Biman has taken a huge amount of foreign loans to buy the aircraft, according to media reports.

"No-one will give us planes free. We've bought six planes and four more aircraft will come in 2018. The full payment has to be made before the shipment of planes. We paid all the loans for those in time," Bari said.