Raihanul Abedin

By mid 2009, the water crisis was so large and widespread, that WASA decided to transport tanks of water on trucks to major areas of the capital. Earlier the same month, he said that "due to dependence on deep tube wells, water layers in the city are dropping around three metres a year on average" about the excessive use of underground water of the capital through around a thousand illegal deep tube wells, and filling up of low-lying land, canals and water bodies are causing the underground water level to drop alarmingly. Various researchers say that this could put the citizens in severe water crisis in the future and also cause land to subside. As a result, the capital braced for one of their history's worst water logging problems, that Abedin believed was resulted from unauthorised buildings being built on land filled up from ponds and lakes. He also brought attention to more than a 100,000 illegal links in the national water supply network which costs the nation around Tk 350 million a year.

On 8 April 2009, Abedin resigned from his position and a Joint Secretary from the Ministry of Local Government Rural Development (LGRD) of Bangladesh was a temporary replacement for him, before the newly elected government chose another suitor.

In 2008, the online billing system was introduced for the utility board and it heralded mixed signals from the citizens mainly because of spotty Internet services and in 2009, WASA increased water tariff by 20 percent, only after a month after a five percent increase in tariff. He said that it was due to frequent power outage, which is why pumps have to be often run by generators, which is contributing to a rise in water lifting cost.

Abedin then served as the managing director of Water Supply and Sewerage System operations of the government of Bangladesh, during the military-supported government of Bangladesh in 2007. He was forced to resign once the ruling party took power in the 2009 national elections when the newly formed government sued top officials of the old regime. Abedin, during whose time WASA was expanded from six to 11 zones was called in the Local Government Rural Development and Cooperatives (LGRD) Ministry in April 2009 and asked to resign immediately due to nepotism, according to the new Government. Inquiries later suggested that it was just a scheme for him to abandon his post as the head of Dhaka Wasa. As a former high official of State-Owned Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Company Limited (RPGCL) Abedin was sued twice by the government on his birthday in 2008. The allegations were, however, false. RPGCL claimed that there was a corruption of BDT 15.3 million; however, the company RPGCL did not have an overall worth of BDT 10 million (around US$120,000) at that time, so the allegations weren't sensible.

Abedin initiated the $230 million deal with Unocal Corporation (now Chevron Corporation) in 2004, after getting approval from Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. He was also a senior National committee member for International Clean Cities program of the United States Department of Energy in Bangladesh. Bangladesh was getting very polluted due to extreme use of fuels. In 2001, Abedin was the first to initiate the national plan to decrease the use of using liquid fuels, by introducing natural gas conversion. He thought if cars could be converted to use cooking gas instead of rather harmful fuels, the carbon emission would decrease exponentially. He was given the permission by the Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to carry out his plans. As a result, Asian Development Bank funded his scheme and today more than 80% of Bangladeshi vehicles are run on gas which has lessened pollution significantly.

Abedin personally initiated the $230 million (£123.9m) deal with Unocal Corporation (now Chevron Corporation) in 2004, on behalf of Bangladesh, after getting approval from the Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. This was at the Bibiyana field, which was located roughly around 180 miles north-east of the capital Dhaka, and had a reserve of 2.4 trillion cubic feet of gas; it was found by Unocal in 1998. When asked about the 1997 blowout of the Magurchhara gas field, caused by Occidental Petroleum (later taken over by Chevron) and the resulting $6.12 billion suit against Chevron Corporation, (of which only TK 380,000,000 was paid in damages) and why nothing was done of it, he said "Ask the government". He also received objection letters from Tullow Oil, when they objected the sell out of Chevron Texaco interests to Niko Resources and the Government of Bangladesh.

Between 2003 and 2006, Niko Resources was possibly involved in a corruption scandal involving the $750 million Tengratila and Feni gas fields in Bangladesh (the company accidentally caused an explosion, initially refused to pay for damages and gave the Minister responsible for overseeing compensation claims an expensive vehicle; Niko eventually did compensate the 620 affected families). Investigation into corruption allegations were made by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in January 2009. Blowout or failure of equipments are generally out of human control and scope. Most planned and prepared operations can fail against response from Mother Nature.

In 1998 and 1999, Enron Corporation was also selected for the blocks alongside Oakland, where Enron proposed 80 percent share for themselves, and the rest for Oakland. The High Court of Bangladesh, placed a ban on signing any Production sharing agreement with any international oil company in December 2001, the same year that Enron Corporation went bankrupt for the Enron scandal. Production sharing agreement head, Abedin outright rejected the notion, saying it was just a visit to the National Energy Sector, adding that they did not have a specific proposal. The Oakland-Rexwood blocks were later operated by Tullow Oil.

In response, Abedin said that according to the WASA Act of 1996, he is entitled to live in the palatial complex, as he took initiatives during the caretaker government to retrieve a six bigha palatial house of WASA in Gulshan, which had been rented out to people without any legal authority. "A government residential house cannot be rented out," he added.

In March 1973, Abedin was commissioned in the East Pakistan Army, then later the newly formed Bangladesh Army, where he served alongside Sheikh Kamal, son of former President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh. In February 1984, he retired from the military, ranked a Major to work in the private sector.

Abedin was born in East Pakistan to a family of dewans in Comilla, who were chief ministers to the Kings of Tripura in their capital at Comilla. He attended the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (then known as East Pakistan University of Engineering and Technology), where he studied mechanical engineering, graduating in 1970. He was an Army Scholar. During his time in BUET, he was the President of Awami League Chatro League. He also led the Choi Dofa Andalon from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. He married Shamsun Nahar, a member of the Munshibari family of Comilla. Nahar was the older sister of authors Kamrun Nahar and Saleh Uddin. He has two daughters, Shehnaz Raihan Abedin (Jenny) and Nowrin Raihan Abedin, and a son, Mohammad Rafatul Abedin (Rafat).

Major Muhammad Raihanul Abedin, (Bengali: মোহাম্মদ রাইহানুল আবেদিন; born 1 July 1952) is a former military officer of the Bangladesh Army and an energy, power and utilities engineer. He was the former PSC Director of the Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation. Working on behalf of the government of Bangladesh, he oversaw all energy production treaties with various foreign energy companies, including Enron Corporation, Niko Resources, and Tullow Oil.