Bangladesh News

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka in his wealth statement submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday declared that he owns movable and immovable property worth Tk 9 crore.

The statement showed immovable property worth about Tk 8 crore and movable property worth Tk 1.22 crore in the names of Khoka, his wife Ismat Ara, son Israk Hossain and daughter Sarika Sadeque.

A number of sources, including his salary as a minister, lawmaker and the DCC mayor, and profits from his business were shown as the sources of his income.

According to the wealth statement, immovable property worth Tk 2.92 crore are in Khoka’s name, property worth Tk 3.71 crore are in his wife’s name, and property worth Tk 58.48 lakh and 16.4 lakh are in the names of his son and daughter.

The immovable properties include five houses, six flats and eight plots in and outside the capital, and 2,838 decimals (28.38 acre) of land.

Their movable properties include two cars–a Lexus and a Toyota–worth Tk 53.26 lakh, and bank balance in DPS and Protirakkha Shanchay Patra.

Khoka also showed 40 bank accounts in the names of himself, his wife and daughter while there are fixed deposit (FDR) and savings scheme worth Tk 25 lakh and Tk 15 lakh in his son’s name.

The mayor said he also owns two firearms.

Of Khoka’s houses, two are at Gopibagh in the city, one in Munshiganj, one three-storey building on RK Mission Road and a six-storey building in Gulshan.

Of the six flats in the capital, two each were shown in the names of Khoka’s wife, daughter and son while the eight plots in the capital were shown in the name of his wife.

The wealth statement showed 32 decimals of land in Munshiganj and 1,142 decimals in Gazipur in Khoka’s name and 1,674 decimals in Gazipur in his wife’s name.

Khoka also mentioned that he has 27 bank accounts, including joint accounts, with different banks, his wife has 11 accounts and his daughter has two.

Khoka said he and his wife own shares worth Tk 25 lakh, have business investment worth Tk 1.57 lakh and gold ornaments worth Tk 2.5 lakh while there is a shop at Bashundhara City at Panthapath in the name of his son.

HIS INCOME SOURCES
Khoka’s sources of income mentioned in the wealth statement include salaries he received as a minister, lawmaker and the DCC mayor during 1991-2007 and money from selling one of his cars.

Other income sources include honorarium he received as a member of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) for two terms–from 1975 to 1990 and from 1996 to 2001, the commission he received as a businessman, business profits and the amount he received as house rent.

Khoka’s businesses mentioned in the wealth statement include importing salt through Brothers United since 1975, installation of deep tube well under a Bangladesh Krishi Unnayan Corporation project, and businesses with different organisations including the T&T and ICDDR,B.

Khoka topped the list of 11 high-profile graft suspects who were served with ACC notices on October 18 asking them to submit wealth statements in a week. The 11 are among 35 graft suspects on the ACC’s fourth list published on October 4. Earlier, the ACC had listed 142 people as graft suspects in three phases.

Former finance minister M Saifur Rahman’s son Shafiur Rahman Babu and former caretaker government adviser Justice M Fazlul Huq, who were among the 11, submitted their wealth statements in the stipulated time.

Khoka and eight others sought further time for submitting their statements.

Awami League (AL) Presidium Member Tofail Ahmed, former BNP state minister Maj (retd) Kamrul Islam, former communications secretary Rezaul Hayat, building inspector and Rajuk CBA President Amir Khasru, and former AL lawmaker AKM Rahmat Ullah submitted their wealth statements on Wednesday.