DHAKA, July 28, 2021 (BSS) - Former principal secretary to the Prime Minister valiant freedom fighter Dr SA Samad, who subsequently served as chairman of the then Board of Investment (BOI), died here this afternoon at his Baridhara residence.

He was 79.

"He died while asleep at his Baridhara residence," Jamilur Rab, nephew of Dr Samad, told BSS.

He said Samad, a life-long bachelor, died a day after he was released from a city hospital receiving treatment for brain complications and added that Dr Samad was in a recovery stage.

Rab said the first namaz-e-janaza of one of the country’s leading economist will be held at Baridhara Jame Masjid on the 1 no road here at 10 am tomorrow.

He said Samad would be buried at his family graveyard in Gafargaon upazila of Mymensingh following a second nanaj-e-zanaja after Zohr prayers, Rab added.

A career civil servant Samad previously served as a faculty of Dhaka University's economics department.

Born in 1942, Dr Samad had his early schooling in Dhaka and studied economics at the University of Dhaka, the University of California and Boston University, from where he obtained his doctorate degree in economics in 1979.

Son of a prominent lawyer Syed Abdul Ghani, Samad taught economics at the Dhaka University, Boston State College, Boston University, Bangladesh Administrative Staff College, Public Administration Training Center and in the Asia-Pacific region as an academic, professional economist and international civil servant.

In the mid eighties, he headed several national committees on public sector reforms and served as presidential economic adviser in early 1980s and played a crucial role in reaching the historic 1996 Ganges Water Sharing Treaty with India and the 1997 peace agreement with Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS).

In Late 1990s he was appointed as the executive chairman of the then BOI with the status of a Cabinet Minister.

Samad joined the Mujibnagar Government severing links with Pakistan while serving as the additional deputy commissioner (ADC) of Rangamati being a member of erstwhile Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP).

He was the president of Mujibnagar Employees’ (freedom fighters) Welfare Association during the period of 1996 to 2001 (till his retirement).

Samad served as a programme director (economic management and information technology) at the UN Asia and Pacific Development Center (APDC) in Kuala Lumpur from 1990 to 1996.

He was also the executive secretary of the largest social science development studies network of the region, ADIPA, between 1992 and 1997.