DHAKA May 04, 2010: The final design of a performance management system (PMS) for six public energy utilities was presented today which is ready for implementation. The PMS is a management tool to organize resource allocation, facilitate accountability, and enable informed decision-making- thus help to improve performance.
The World Bank, as part of the last several months’ consultative process, organized a workshop to share the PMS design and to reach a consensus on how this system can be implemented and maintained in a sustainable way. The PMS was developed under non lending technical assistance program of the World Bank funded by DFID Governance Trust Fund, and Ausaid Infrastructure for Growth Trust fund. The technical assistance aligns with the Government’s strategy for energy sector especially in terms of governance, performance, and regulation.
The participating utilities from generation, transmission and distribution entities are: Ashuganj Power Station, Energy Generation Company of Bangladesh, PoweGrid Company of Bangladesh, Gas Transmission Company Ltd, Dhaka Electricity Supply Company, and South Zone Power Distribution Company Ltd.
The PMS, using a set of key performance indicators (KPI), will support senior management to become more accountable and enable to identify performance improvement opportunities through target setting, monitoring, and identifying capacity and training needs.
‘This MIS tool will help the public utility companies to improve their performance’ said Zafrul Islam, Acting Country Director, World Bank Bangladesh. ‘The World Bank is ready to support and work with the individual utility companies for implementation of the system through a short to long term program.’
The workshop also discussed setting up of a Planning and Performance Management Cell. The participants stressed that in the interim at least the utilities can assign a Monitoring Officer.
The World Bank provided the assistance in two phases where in the first phase diagnostic of various functional processes of the six utilities was carried out. Key stakeholders in the sector, including representatives from Government of Bangladesh, utilities, Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission, and the development partners participated in the workshop.
