Govt to procure 3.60 lakh MT fertilizer, 67.20 lakh MMBtu LNG

The government will procure a total of 3.60 lakh metric tons of MOP, TSP and granular urea fertilizer alongside purchasing 67.20 lakh MMBtu LNG to meet the growing demand.

The approval came from a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase (CCGP) held today virtually with Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in the chair. Briefing reporters after the meeting virtually, Cabinet Division Additional Secretary Dr Sahida Akhter said that the day’s meeting approved a total of 8 proposals.

She informed that under two separate proposals, Petrobangla would procure 33.60 lakh MMBtu LNG from Excelerate Energy LP, United States with around Taka 318.26 crore where the unit price would be $9.53. The Petrobangla would also procure 33.60 lakh MMBtu LNG from the same US company with Taka 298.22 crore where the unit price would be $8.93. Sahida said BADC under the Ministry of Agriculture would procure 1.80 lakh metric tons of MOP fertilizer from Belarus with around Taka 447.83 crore where the cost for per metric ton of fertilizer would be $292.87. She informed that the BADC would procure another 1.50 lakh metric tons of TSP fertilizer from Tunisia with around Taka 723.77 crore where the cost for per metric ton of fertilizer would be $568.

Apart from this, Sahida said BCIC under the Ministry of Industries would procure 30,000 metric tons of bagged granular urea fertilizer from KAFCO, Bangladesh under the 14th lot with around Taka 92.38 crore.

The day’s CCGP meeting approved a proposal from the Ministry of Food for procuring 50,000 metric tons of non Basmati boiled rice from M/S Soubhik Exports Limited, India with around around Taka 163.66 crore. The consignment of rice will be imported through railways where the price for per metric ton of rice would be $386 while per KG rice would be Taka 32.73.

The Cabinet Division additional secretary said the meeting gave approval to a proposal from the Secondary and Higher Education Division for procuring vocational education equipment for 640 educational institutions under the 2nd and 4th lot of the project titled “Secondary Education Sector Investment Programme”. In another proposal from the Secondary and Higher Education Division, necessary public works, machineries, equipment and services would be procured from TAIHAN Consortium, Korea with around Taka 460 crore under the project titled “Establishment of 160 Upazila ICT Training and Resource for Education Phase-2”.

Meanwhile, the Finance Minister said the day’s meeting did not consider five proposals from the Ministry of Housing and Public Works as the government has taken decision not to consider any proposal for fresh project works from this Ministry until June 30 this year.

He said that the public works against these five placed proposals would not be completed within this fiscal year as there is not ample time left for completion and thus those were not considered. Kamal said that during this period, the government would only consider funding of the ongoing projects, the foreign funded projects and the concerned variation proposals from this Ministry.

(AA)