Acting on a pile of allegations of corruption in 19 public sector offices, the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday swung into action conducting drives at four major entities in Dhaka and Chittagong. Three teams of the anti-corruption watchdog, during their near simultaneous drives at Chittagong Customs House, Chittagong Port, Biman Bangladesh Airlines headquarters in the capital and the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA) office vowed to uproot corruption from these entities. The teams also asked the authorities of the four organisations to give documents relating to procurement, manpower recruitment and the annual report, ACC sources told The Independent.
The teams will continue drives in public sector offices and submit their reports to the ACC chief with recommendations for making the offices corruption free, ACC Director General Munir Chowdhury, who was present during the drives conducted in Chittagong, said. “Corruption prevails everywhere in these organisastions but the situation is the worst in Chittagong Custom House and the port where no file moves without bribe,” said another member of the team.
AFM Aminul Islam, ACC Commissioner (investigation), and the ACC DG, along with other senior ACC officials, went to the Chittagong Custom House at 10am and later to Chittagong Port jetties and the Chittagong Port Authority office. The Custom House is the largest revenue generating office in the country that earns Tk 30,000 annually while the Ctg Port solely handles about 80 per cent of the country’s total export and import.
During the visit, the ACC team found both customs officials and C&F agent staff were working together on the import-export files, a gross violation of the NBR rules. “Although the Custom House boasts to be a fully automated entity, employees were doing their work manually to take bribes from clients,” the ACC DG told The Independent, adding that they would soon sit with the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to devise ways to ensure maximum utilisation of the automation process. ACC Commissioner Aminul Islam said corruption can be eradicated gradually and the intensity of graft has already come down in many offices through their innovative ideas. But in the Chittagong Custom House he did not find “any effective anti-corruption tools”.
It is almost open secret that for importing goods importers and C&F agents have to pay bribe widely known as “Speed Money” at 21-35 levels starting from value assessment of goods to delivery of the consignments. Another ACC team, which went to the Biman headquarters around 11am, sought some information and papers from the Biman authorities to conduct investigation on alleged corruption in the state-run airlines.
A four-member team, led by ACC Director Syed Iqbal Hossain, met the Managing Director of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, AM Mosaddique Ahmed, at his office and asked for information and documents. The Biman MD assured the team to provide the information within a few days.
Syed Iqbal told The Independent that they asked for the information as part of their recent initiative to conduct investigation against alleged corruptions of a total of 19 organisations.
Biman is one of the organisations, he said adding that the Biman MD had pledged them all cooperation in conducting the investigation.
Talking with The Independent, the Biman MD said the ACC team didn’t ask for any specific information. “They asked us to give them a lot of information including our annual report. It was more of a routine visit.” He, however, said that Biman would provide the ACC with all support in conducting any sort of investigation. Another three-member team, led by ACC Director Belal Hossain, went to the Dhaka WASA headquarters and asked the DWASA Managing Director Engr Taksim A Khan to provide them with information and documents relating to corruption allegations. The Dhaka WASA managing director agreed to cooperate with the ACC team.