The Cabinet has endorsed a proposal to make into a law the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation Ordinance, which was promulgated during the military regime.
The final approval for the draft ‘Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation Law, 2015’ came at a regular meeting on Monday, presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Cabinet Secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan later told reporters there was no marked change in the final sanction of the draft law that was provisionally approved on Mar 2 this year.
He said the BPC had been running under the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation Ordinance, 1976 promulgated during the martial law rule.
The law was being translated into Bangla as per a Cabinet directive.
The BPC would have a bigger board of directors under the draft law, Bhuiyan said.
Previously there was a provision for a chairman and five full-time directors but in the new draft law, there will be a chairman and eight directors in the board, three of whom would represent different ministries.
Five members would make a quorum for meeting but one of those have to be a government representative, Bhuiyan said.
He said the Cabinet, however, did not sanction an Energy and Mineral Resources Division proposal to have the BPC headquartered in Dhaka.
After the March approval on principle, the Cabinet secretary had said the Corporation would have an approved capital of Tk 50 million from Tk 10 million.