A K M Shamsuddin, a retired secretary to the government of Bangladesh, passed away on 26 July 2022. It was indeed quite sad and shocking for me to know of his sudden demise at the age of 72. He had been suffering from Covid-19. He was born in January 1950 in Sirajganj. I do wish and pray for eternal peace of his departed soul and express my deepest condolences to all of his family members, colleagues, friends and well-wishers. I saw how simple and modest life he used to live. I am really bemused and express my deepest sorrow on the demise of him who always liked honest, sincere, efficient, innovative and hard working professionals.He was a thorough professional and dedicated to his work. He was a man of unshakable integrity and honesty. He will remain in our heart as a good person. We know, no one will stay in this world forever. Some will leave ahead, leaving behind all his relatives and friends to mourn. We all are born to pass away but our good work will help us live eternally. Almighty Allah took him away from us. May Allah grant him Jannatul Ferdaus.
Shamsuddin contributed a lot to the country by initiating and implementing many policy decisions while he was in the energy sector or as a Secretary, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education. He was actively involved in the implementation of the Primary Education Development Programme-2 which got the best Program award from ADB.
Shamsuddin was a simple, calm, soft spoken, kind and a man of high ethics. I had and have a great respect for him. I am very much impressed about his integrity and professionalism. I had the opportunity to be in close touch with him in the Hydrocarbon Unit. His cooperation and enormous support to the team helped us a lot for carrying out the assignments having high quality and international standards. He always showed a friendly attitude towards his fellow colleagues. Still, I am fond of his memories of what he was. I worked under the leadership of him as a colleague in the Hydrocarbon Unit during the period of mid-2000 to 2004. It was my great days to work together with him along with Abu Karim, Jalal Ahmed, Siddique Zubair, Shafiqur Rahman, Nasreen Afroz, Anwara Begum, Javed Chowdhury and late Mir Moinul Huq, a renowned geo-scientist.
Mr. Shamsuddin retired in 2008 as secretary from the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education. After retirement, he was appointed as High Commissioner of Bangladesh to Kenya with concurrent accreditation to Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana and Mauritius. Besides, he served as a Permanent Representative of Bangladesh in the United Nations Environment Program and during that time he was elected as Vice Chair from the Asian Group for two terms.
Mr. Shamsuddin worked as a founder Director of the Hydrocarbon Unit of the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources from mid-1999 to August 2004. It was my pleasure and I had a great time working with him and getting to know about him. While he was working as a Head of HCU and had been carried out many challenging works which were gas resource and reserve estimation of Bangladesh with an institutional arrangement with Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, established a mini data bank and developed a cost database for gas sector, prepared reports on production and depletion management, recommended on regulatory issues, conducted optimal gas utilization study for Bangladesh which included Bangladesh gas market developments, investment requirements, impact on gas reserves, gas exploitation options, formulated regulation and identified organizational issues, reviewed PSCs and suggested necessary changes for the future contracts, conducted many technical seminars especially for making the next bid rounds for future PSCs more attractive.
During his service period, Mr. Shamsuddin was a Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources, during 1992-96 and worked as a coordinator for preparing energy policy of the country. The energy policy was formulated in 1995 to provide energy for sustainable economic growth, meet the energy needs of the country, and ensure optimum development of all the indigenous energy sources, sustainable operation of the energy utilities, rational use of total energy sources and, public and private sector participation in the development and management of the energy sector. He also worked as an Electrical Advisor and Chief of Electrical Inspector from 1998 to 99.
Mr. Shamsuddin contributed a lot as a member of the Committee for Rationalization of Natural Gas and Power Tariff and as Chair of SAARC Technical Committee of Energy for consecutive two years. He was a Project Director for preparing various reports on the gas sector master plan, gas pricing, institutional analysis, etc. Apart from this, he also contributed as a Chair of the Board of Directors of Bangladesh Gas Fields Company Limited and Padma Oil Company Limited and as a Director of the Board of Directors of Agrani Bank Limited.
Mr. Shamsuddin delivered his services as an Expert of Institutional and Organizational Strengthening and was engaged by ADB during 2012-13. He also worked on the Medium Term Budget Framework to prepare medium-term budgets for several ministries where he was engaged by the Ministry of Finance and contributed as a Specialist of Energy to evaluate on implementation of Paris Declaration Phase II.
Mr. Shamsuddin graduated in Electrical Engineering from BUET (71 batch). He was a Life Fellow of the Institute of Engineers, Bangladesh. He held different positions in Bangladesh Railway from Assistant Electrical Engineer to Chief Electrical Engineer during the period from 1973 to 1992.
After his retirement in 2007, Mr. Shamsuddin delivered consultancy services to our major development partners including ADB, WB, DFID, CIDA, SIDA, JICA, USAID, DANIDA, NORAD, GIZ, UNESCO, UNDP, UNEP and UN Habitat.
Mr. Shamsuddin, coming from Railway service to the general cadre service and reached the highest position as Secretary of the government and then retired as an Ambassador. It was possible because of his knowledge, capability, honesty and integrity which is very rare nowadays. He was truly a government servant and served as a silent warrior during the period of all the governments.
