The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) had detected huge corruption involving crores of taka in the transport sections of the Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL), previously known as Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Boards (BTTB).

The ACC Director General (Admin) Col Hanif Iqbal told the Commission's regular briefing that the anti-graft watchdog's special team constituted to investigate corruption in BTCL has unveiled massive corruption in transport allowance and repairing of vehicles and their fuel consumption.He said the ACC special team is mainly concentrating on these three areas at the moment and has found that crores of taka have been misappropriated since 2001-02 fiscal year till date.

On corruption in the name of transport allowance, Hanif said Tk 1.91 crore was shown spent for allowance in 2007-08. Of the money, Tk 65.85 lakh was disbursed and the remaining Tk 1.25 crore misappropriated through fake vouchers.

Similarly, Tk 2.26 crore and Tk 2.46 crore were misappropriated in 2006-07 and 2005-06 fiscal years respectively. The money misappropriated from 2000-2001 to 2004-2005 fiscal years is under investigation of the special team.

About corruption in repairing of vehicles, over Tk 30 crore was misappropriated in six years (from 2000-01 to 2005-06). For instance, it was shown that Tk 6.91 crore was spent in 2000-01 fiscal year on repair of 104 (now 81) vehicles of the BTCL headquarters. But, actually workshop bills were paid for only Tk 47 lakh and the remaining Tk 6.43 crore was misappropriated through fake vouchers.

In this regard, Col Hanif mentioned that in 2000-01 fiscal year Tk 6 lakh was spent on repair of each vehicle by which one reconditioned vehicle could have been bought.

The ACC special team also unearthed corruption in spending of fuel for the BTCL vehicles in the last eight years (2000-01 to 2007-08).

For example, it was shown that Tk 2.79 crore was spent on fuel in 2004-05 fiscal year. But, the ACC team found out that huge money was

spent showing fake destinations and spending excessive fuel. In some cases, it was shown that some vehicles consumed even 500-600 liters of fuel every month, though there is no provision of spending more than 200 liters for a car.

The team is investigating to find out as to how much money has been misused and misappropriated in this field.

When asked how many BTCL officials are involved in this huge corruption, the ACC director general parried the question. He told a questioner that all levels of staff are involved in the corruption.

Hanif said the special team formed to look into corruption in Education Ministry is questioning individuals, mostly retired ones, about Monthly Payment Order-related corruption.

Responding to a question, he said as per the existing law, retired officials could be brought under law.