Most of the power sector deals were signed by a nexus of private entities, government higher-ups and bureaucrats during the Awami League regime, found the national committee formed to review the power sector contracts.

At the top of that nexus was then prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who served as the minister of power, energy and mineral resources. Besides, some officials of the Prime Minister's Office had repeatedly interfered with the power sector deals.

The committee also found procedural flaws in signing the deal with Adani Power to import electricity from India and recommended further digging into the issue by the Anti-Corruption Commission.

"We have found massive corruption, collusion, frauds, irregularities and illegalities in the process of execution of power purchase agreements (PPAs) with independent power producers," Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury, the head of the committee, told journalists after submitting the "interim report" to Power Adviser Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan at his office.

Neither the committee, nor the government have disclosed the report titled "Bangladesh's Power Generation: Trapped in Costly Contracts and Massive Governance Failures in a Rent-Rich Sector", calling it a "confidential" document.

The report would be disclosed after reviewing its sensitivity, Khan said.

The committee has recommended making the report public as well as all the present and future PPAs and implementation agreements, said power division officials.

The Daily Star has talked with multiple committee members who said they have identified the deals as "zero risk" for the businesses.

No business in the globe is risk-free, but the terms of capacity payments for power plants were being set in a way that protects the high profits of the investors, said a committee member on condition of anonymity.

"It was a nexus between the government higher-ups and bureaucrats -- just think why the power division was under the prime minister herself. There were a couple of officials in the PMO who were former officials of the power division. They had influences over the deals," said another committee member.

The report at least mentioned the names of Ahmad Kaikaus and Abul Kalam Azad, two former secretaries of power division who were later promoted to the post of principal secretary to the prime minister.

He said they have recommended the government for an "oversight mechanism" to sign the future deals and re-negotiate the deals that took excessive profits.

"We have already signed the deals and are trapped in it. We have no other option but to re-negotiate the deals," he added.

The committee has submitted another supplementary report on the "anomalies of the procedures of power purchase agreement with Adani Power (Jharkhand) Limited", which also found the "procedural flaws" in the signing of the deal.

A committee member told The Daily Star that they have found the draft of the deal was prepared by Adani Power itself and the officials of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) were instructed to sign it by the government high-ups.

Asked whether the Adani deal would be cancelled, Khan said there are procedures for cancelling a deal, which is also mentioned in the report.

"If we go for a without cause cancellation, we would have to pay huge amounts of liquidity damages to the companies. So, we need to cancel a deal with a cause and that might be corruption. Most of the deals have clauses of representation and warranties which declare themselves as corruption-free... if we find corruption in the deals, we will not hesitate [to cancel it]," he said.

After submitting a writ petition to the High Court, the Anti-Corruption Commission and the power division are working to get proof of the anomalies, he added.

The committee was formed in September 2024 and took around 14 months to submit its primary report and expressed hope to conclude their activities by January next year.

"As a technical issue, the committee had to go through huge documents of most of the power deals signed under "Quick Enhancement of Electricity and Energy Supply (Special Provisions) Act 2010" (now repealed), the procedural documents, payments and generational data, which took up much of the time," said Chowdhury, the chief of the committee.