Govt clamps down on misuse of Hajj money
HAAB yet to refund Tk 16.71cr of govt funds
STAFF REPORTER
Leaders of the Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh (HAAB) are yet to refund the sum of Tk. 16.71 crore borrowed from the government to deposit the necessary charges for the extra 5,000 pilgrims sent to Saudi Arabia for performing Hajj last year. The religious ministry has recently rejected the expenditure statement submitted by the HAAB after finding huge anomalies in it. According to sources, the ministry is examining the statement by forming a committee led by its joint secretary, which will finalise the statement and detect all the anomalies. It is now planning to take necessary legal action against HAAB officials for misappropriation of huge amounts of government funds, the sources added.
The parliamentary standing committee on the religious affairs ministry has also recommended to the government to take legal steps against those HAAB officials who were involved in misusing public funds and to recover the funds immediately.
A high-level committee of the ministry is examining the financial statement submitted by HAAB. After getting its report, the ministry will take necessary action against those responsible for the misappropriation of public funds, Md Abdul Jalil, acting secretary of the religious affairs ministry, told The Independent.
The ministry will take every possible measure to realise government funds, he said,
adding that no one involved in misuse of such funds would be spared, as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is also concerned about the incident.
However, HAAB secretary general Shaikh Md. Abdullah said they have already submitted a financial statement to the ministry. They have also refunded the rest of the money after necessary expenditure for the extra pilgrims who performed Hajj last year, he claimed.
According to sources in the religious affairs ministry, HAAB leaders have refunded only Tk. 16.68 crore out of the total Tk. 33.38 crore borrowed from the government to deposit the fees for the extra 5,000 pilgrims in the last eight months.
HAAB has submitted a statement of a total expenditure of Tk. 27.33 crore, including the refunded amount, to the ministry. They could not account for the missing Tk. 6.05 crore. In its statement, HAAB claimed that it has refunded about Tk. 10.67 crore to the Hajj agencies that had deposited Moyallem fees and other expenditures against their pilgrims during the registration process. At the same time, they have refunded Tk. 16.68 crore to the government.
Owners of Hajj agencies and other persons concerned claimed that they have not received a single penny from HAAB. They said HAAB is trying to misappropriate about Tk. 10.67 crore from the pilgrims and Hajj agencies by claiming that the money has been refunded.
They also claimed that HAAB leaders had sent around 2,200 new pilgrims among the extra 5,000 pilgrims, though the governments decision was to send only those pilgrims who failed to register their names after depositing Moyallem fees.
They have taken extra fees from the pilgrims and agencies, but not deposited the money with the government exchequer.
Last March, the relevant documents of the extra pilgrims were stolen from the office of the former secretary at the ministry. The present secretary, Abdul Jalil, identified that the files had gone missing, and took immediate steps to recover them. Finally, the files, including all documents, were recovered in last April.
According to the ministry sources, the immediate past religious affairs secretary, in collusion with other ministry officials and HAAB officials, had concealed the files.
Last year, Bangladesh sent a total of 1,06,758 pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for Hajj. Of them, an extra quota of 5,000 pilgrims was provided in the final stage of sending pilgrims to Saudi Arabia as a special allocation.
