Ministers to inspect Matarbari security arrangements today

A high-level government delegation led by Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan will visit the under-construction deep-sea port and several other projects at Matarbari of Maheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar today to look into security issues there.

Other members on the delegation are state minister for shipping Kahild Mahamud Chowdhury, officials of the Prime Minister Office and the Ministry of Shipping, heads of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Apart from the deep-sea port at Matarbari, several mega projects in the power and energy sector including offshore oil storage, Single Point Mooring for unloading crude oil, gas supply line from deep-sea floating station are under construction in Matarbari.

The home minister and other officials would inspect security arrangements of all the projects, said officials.

Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation Chairman ABM Azad said the high-level delegation will visit Matarbari to discuss issues related to the home ministry in the important state projects including their security.

Works at the deep-sea port, which is now under a global focus, are in progress to ensure the berthing of mother vessels which cannot berth at Chattogram Port. The project is likely to be completed by 2025.

The ministers and senior government officials will visit the project sites and later brief journalists about the reasons behind their visit, said Chittagong Port chairman Rear Admiral Mohammad Shahjahan.

He said the visit clearly indicates that the government is much serious about the projects.

Matarbari deep-sea port construction project is under shipping ministry, but the home ministry is coordinating Tuesday’s visit of the officials.

Officials at the home ministry said that the delegation is going to inspect to check the security arrangements of this important project in the same style another delegation led by the home minister visited the Ruppur Nuclear Power Plant last week.

The process of constructing a power plant at Matarbari at a cost of Tk 17,700 crore is underway.

An initiative to build a deep-sea port on Sonadia Island in the Bay of Bengal was taken in 2009.

But the government later cancelled the initiative for ecosystem protection and other reasons.

Some analysts say the Sonadia project was postponed over the conflicting interests of the regional powers.

Finally, the government moved for constructing the deep-sea port at Matarbari, 25 kilometres off Sonadia.