Ahsan Mansur: A personal note of gratitude

I should start with a caveat. 

My relationship with Ahsan Bhai goes back to more than five decades: he was senior to me by a year in the Economics Department of Dhaka University.

We worked closely when he was seconded by the IMF as an adviser to the National Board of Revenue. To indicate our closeness, in the early '90s, I stayed in his home in Virginia during my visits to Washington DC for credit negotiations with the World Bank and IMF.

Coming back to the subject. When I took the responsibility of the power and energy sector, in August 2024, it was saddled with huge foreign currency debts to the tune of$3.2 billion in unpaid bills. The gas, electricity suppliers threatened to stop doing business with us, charged penal interests and included surcharge for the delayed payments in product prices.

Taka was depreciating fast and dollars were unavailable at the banks. My everyday routine included arranging Taka funds for energy payments, and then calling managing directors of commercial banks to supply USD to meet our payment obligations. They would advise me to secure USD allocations from the central bank as they had limited foreign currency to settle their own LCs, etc.

I would call Ahsan Bhai sometimes twice or thrice in a day in desperation. He would help in some cases and mostly advise me to be patient saying that he is working on stabilising the exchange rate and to augment supply of dollars. 

Currency markets manipulators were looking for arbitrage opportunities trying to sink the BDT further. Ahsan Bhai remained steadfast and did not yield to the syndicate.

As an interim measure, we worked with the Finance Division on a guarantee scheme for the commercial banks. That helped a bit. But due to Ahsan Bhai's resolute stance and policy measures, free fall of BDT was stopped and the forex reserve headed north. 

We would get the needed dollars from the market without calling commercial banks' MDs or the governor.

Ahsan Bhai, you not only stabilised our currency from the brink of collapse but also helped us to shore up the energy sector by clearing most of our foreign currency debts, for which I remain personally indebted to you.

In plain language, we were staring at forex unavailability, sharp depreciation of Taka. Huge unpaid bills in the energy sector meant inability to supply energy to industries, fall in production and exports, and employment, all leading to predicted collapse of the economy à la Sri Lanka. Thanks to you and our efforts, that did not happen.

I wish, someday, our nation and posterity will arrange for you a better send off from office, for your contribution to the nation, at a critical time.

Sketch: TBS

Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan is the former power, energy and mineral resources adviser of the recently dissolved interim government. The text of this article has been taken from a post shared on his official Facebook profile.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.