Of late Biman's failure to maintain its flight schedule is making headlines in all newspapers of the country. And the reason for Biman's incapability to operate its flights on schedule has been attributed to its shortage of aircrafts. It is well known to all that all the aircrafts of Biman are very old, so much so that their maintenance has been posing a serious problem.

The aircrafts suffer from mechanical trouble very frequently causing disruption of the Airlines flight schedule. Moreover such old aircrafts are creating a negative impact on its commercial viability and the members of the traveling public tend to choose other airlines wherever these are available. The situation can be gauged from the fact that the government servants, while traveling on duty were under orders to patronize Biman in all such routes where Biman flights were available. But due to general unwillingness to travel by Biman caused by its inefficient service this embargo has recently been withdrawn.

Immediately after Liberation, Biman started its journey as commercial airline, a national flag carrier, all with hired/leased aircrafts. This is understandable. The new country, ravaged by war and facing myriad problems on all fronts was not in a position to buy new aircrafts for its airline. But after its long sojourn for 34 years it could not yet come out of the situation of running with hired and/or old aircrafts.

Naturally the question arises as to why this is so. Had there been a well thought out plan, short and long term, followed by serious attempt to buy new aircrafts in phased manner the present impasse, perhaps, could be avoided. It is not known to the people whether such planning and such attempts were there. What all knows is that all purchases or procurement of aircrafts on lease, dry or wet, were non-transparent and not a single procurement of aircraft, either by outright purchase or on lease has been made without any allegations of corruption surfacing in such deals.

The above picture signals that there is some deep-rooted management inefficiency. The first question is: who runs Biman? Biman has a Board of Directors. This Board has been constituted and reconstituted a number of times. Only one factor was constant: the Chairman of the Board has always been the Minister/State Minister in charge of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism.

In the year 2000 the members of the Board of Directors were the following:

1. Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister.
2. Secretary, Finance Division
3. Secretary, ERD
4. Secretary, IRD
5. Secretary, Establishment Division
6. Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism
7. Managing Director of Biman
8. The General Manager, Corporate Affairs of Biman used to act as the Member Secretary without any voting right.

At present the Board is composed of the following:
1. Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister
2. Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism
3. Secretary, Finance Division
4. Secretary, Ministry of Communications
5. Chairman, Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh
6. Managing Director of Biman
7. Two Members of the Parliament

From the above composition it is seen that none with any background of a commercial airline is represented in the Board. It is very pertinent to mention here that the post of Biman's CEO, the Managing Director, has always been held either by a bureaucrat or by an Air Force Officer from flying branch. So no one with any background, training or knowledge of running a commercial airline, a highly competitive and high-tech industry, exists either in the Board or at the top management post. So it is natural that Biman has been suffering from management inefficiency, inefficiency in fleet planning as well as in commercial operations.

Perhaps Bangladesh is unique in this respect. It should be mentioned here that to be a member of the Board of Directors is quite lucrative. Once somebody becomes a Director, even if for one day, he becomes eligible for free ticket for himself and his family members wherever Biman flies not only as long as he continues as such but also three years after he ceases to be on the Board. In addition there are other travel concessions as well for them.

It has already been mentioned that the Minister/State Minister of the Civil Aviation Ministry heads the Board. In this connection, the comment of the Public Expenditure Review Commission is appended below:

"Since most of the operational and financial matters are under the purview of the Board, the decision of the Ministry influences the Board. Since the Minister himself heads the Board, the Board finds it difficult to formulate independent and objective opinions and recommendations in all such matters. In a corporate management concept a board of directors is accountable to a higher authority or to shareholders for its activities. But in case of Biman, the Board is not accountable to a higher authority because the Minister himself is the Chairman of the Board. The Board is not directly accountable to any other body nor is it under obligation to report to any other authority for its activities and performances. For efficiency and success, the board of directors of any organization having commercial activities should be composed of experts and professionals."

Unfortunately Biman does not have any professional or expert in airline industry on its Board nor has it ever seen a professional as its CEO.

The result is mismanagement in all aspects: in fleet planning, fleet rationalization, operation of loss making routes, flying to a large number of destinations not commensurate with the number of flight worthy aircrafts, financial management, etc. The Public Expenditure Review Commission (PERC) has pointed out the position in detail but the authority does not appear to have taken any initiative to look into the recommendations of the said Commission.

The PERC also mentioned that for a fleet of 17 aircrafts (the number has dwindled to 13 now due to damage or sale of some aircrafts) Biman has 5,484 employees on its payroll incurring annual expenditure on pay and allowance alone to the tune of Tk 279.61 crore (FY 2001-2002). It is certain that this amount has gone up manifold by now.

According to the PERC report, Biman has got 171 motor vehicles of various kinds. The cost of maintenance and fuel for such a large size of fleet of vehicles was Tk 3.50 crore in FY 2001-2002. For a small airline like Biman the number of vehicle appears to be on the high side, the PERC report commented.

About the strength of staff the Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh in one of his audit reports published in the late nineties showed that the number of personnel per aircraft in Biman was ten times higher than Singapore Airlines.

No wonder that Biman has been and will continue to be a loss-making airline, will remain an unreliable carrier unable to compete with other airlines, and if due attention is not paid to revamp its administration and management the situation, may lead to grounding of the national flag carrier altogether.

The writer is a former Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh.