State minister owns 132 flats in capital

Trackback URL

Download PDF

A former state minister of the previous BNP-led alliance, among the 50 people named by the Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) suspected to have amassed illegal wealth, owns 132 flats in Dhaka city under various names.

The tax file of another former BNP parliamentarian, known to be very rich, could not even be found by the investigators, according to a well placed ACC source.

The caretaker government’s inquiry into the 50 suspects found widespread instances of massive tax evasions by almost all of them. “We have found evidence of corruption against all of them and we are now digging deeper,” said the source.

Meanwhile, out of the 50 suspects served with notices to submit wealth statements within 72 hours, nine contacted the ACC through their representatives asking for procedural details for filing the statements.

Eight of the representatives of the suspects who appeared in person at the ACC are the representatives of Mirza Abbas, Mir Nasir Uddin, Ruhul Quddus Talukder Dulu, Shamim Osman, Nasiruddin Pintu, Rashiduzzaman Millat, Chowdhury Alam and Giasuddin. Meanwhile, Dr HBM Iqbal’s representative contacted the ACC over the phone.

“The ACC asked the representatives why the suspects who are not in jail did not appear before the commission themselves, and why did they send representatives?” the source said.

The government intends to complete the investigation of the 50 suspects within this month and file cases against them in the first week of March, the source added.

The government is going to introduce a new law soon to complete the graft trials within 60 days at the lower court level.

Meanwhile, the caretaker government is considering a step to give legality to the ACC’s move to ask for wealth statements in absence of its commissioners.

The ACC secretary is spearheading the current actions which includes asking for wealth statements from corruption suspects. However the ACC Act demands that such an action must be taken in accordance with the decisions taken by all the commissioners. But these posts have been vacant since the resignations of the chairman and the other two commissioners more than two weeks ago.

“To give legality to my actions, the commission can resort to ex post facto approvals when the new commissioners and the chairman will be appointed,” said ACC Secretary Mohammad Delwar Hossain when contacted.

“This is being discussed at the highest level of the government. But there is another idea. The government might promulgate an ordinance to give legality to the ACC secretary’s function since February 4, 2007 until the new commissioners’ are appointed,” he added.

“Emergency works of a state cannot stop in absence of the commissioners. The ACC cannot sit idle when it is facing such an emergency,” he pointed out.

The investigation of the 50 suspects was launched in late January. “Now investigators are looking for well-founded evidence to make the cases solid,” said an official seeking anonymity.

“So far what we gathered shows that everyone among the 50 suspects own multiple flats. The ex-state minister who owns 132 flats has only a few under his own name while the majority of them are under false names,” he added.

“We identified a corruption trend where the powerful did not necessarily take money for doing someone some favour but received flats among many other things,” he said.

“We found corruption in plot allocations under housing projects and tender manipulation favouring certain bidders,” he noted adding, “Some of them have acquired so much of landed properties that we cannot fully comprehend,” the official said.

Partial findings of the wealth of a former BNP parliamentarian close to Khaleda Zia show that he owns nine private limited companies, he said adding that many of the 50 possess multiple luxury cars and some are involved in transport business as owners.

Many have CNG filling stations, cold storage and huge amount of savings certificates, he said.

Houses owned by some of these 50 are fitted with so luxurious products that the government experts from the Public Works Department (PWD) failed to evaluate them. “The PWD has reference sheets on house fittings. When the experts went to those houses to evaluate them, they found that the fittings were exclusive imports and were visibly very expensive,” said the official.

“When we tried to inquire into their wealth by visiting their properties and business concerns, their men tried to conceal many things and they are still trying to do so,” he added.

The official told this correspondent that the properties of the graft suspects described by him are not commensurate to their legal earnings.

The government’s anti-graft teams are also visiting the village homes of the 50 suspects.

The appointment of the chairman of ACC will be announced very soon, the official said.

21 DETAINED SUSPECTS
The ACC yesterday requested the Inspector General (IG) of Prison to serve the 72-hour notice on its behalf to the 21 bigwig corruption suspects who are already in jail.

The ACC secretary said the 72-hour timeframe will be applicable from the moment each of them or their representatives or family members are served with the notice. The suspects will have to submit their wealth statements or their properties will be confiscated.

Those who are in jail may submit their statements through their representatives.

Leave a Reply