[🇧🇩] Corruption Watch

[Saif]

Stolen asset recovery process still at preliminary stage

The interim government has taken some initial moves to bring back the stolen assets from abroad after the previous Awami League regime overthrown amid a student-led mass uprising on...

www.newagebd.net

Stolen asset recovery process still at preliminary stage
Shakhawat Hossain 11 October, 2024, 00:00

The interim government has taken some initial moves to bring back the stolen assets from abroad after the previous Awami League regime overthrown amid a student-led mass uprising on August 5 hardly made any breakthrough in this regard, said officials.

Led by chief adviser professor Muhammad Yunus, the interim government has already reconstituted the national task force on repatriating stolen assets and overhauled the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit as part of its initial moves to recover stolen assets from different parts of the world.

Economists observe that the success in recovering the stolen money depends largely on the freezing of the smuggled and laundered assets by the governments of the destination countries.

The chief adviser has also sought cooperation from some major countries, including the United States, and also from the international bodies, including the United Nations and World Bank, to bring back the stolen assets, particularly those smuggled out and laundered in the past 15 years of the Awami League rule.

The now fallen Awami regime led by Sheikh Hasina faces not only the allegations of stealing money, but those of vote rigging, rights abuse and widespread corruption also, triggering the July student protests.

Drawing attention to the measures by the United States and its Western allies that saw freezing of assets worth around $58 billion of the Russians, economists have said that the interim government should at first persuade the Western countries to freeze the assets of suspected Bangladesh citizens.

Bringing back those assets should be dealt with under long-term plans, said M Masrur Reaz, chairman of think tank Policy Exchange Bangladesh, while talking to New Age on Wednesday.

He said that the interim government should also deal with the sensitive issue under a strategy.

Economists have also said that it has become imperative for the interim government to make visible progress in bringing the stolen money back particularly following the chief adviser’s office’s estimation that over Tk 1,00,000 crore had been laundered over the past 15 years.

In April, the World Bank, quoting the ‘State of the tax justice report 2020’, reported that around $3.15 billion outflows from Bangladesh occurred annually through illegal offshore accounts.

On September 29, the national taskforce on repatriating stolen assets was reconstituted with the Bangladesh Bank governor replacing the attorney general at the top.

The attorney general had been steering the taskforce since 2013 but without any major breakthrough in recovering stolen assets.

Available data show that Bangladesh repatriated around $2.6 million from Singapore between 2012 and 2013, and also sent back $1.58 million to the United Kingdom between 2010 and 2015 in relation to money laundering.

The data and information released by local and international agencies and news media, however, show the massive wealth, acquired through illegal means, owned by Bangladeshi citizens in infamous Begumpara (luxury houses in posh neighbourhoods) in Canada, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the USA, the UK and Malaysia, demonstrating that the efforts by the previous government to check money laundering and prevent terrorism financing bore little fruit in checking capital flight.

Qatar-based media outlet Al Jazeera reported that Saifuzzaman, then land minister and a close ally of the now deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, bought over 360 luxury properties in Britain alone worth $250 million.

His appetite for real estate spread to Dubai, New York, Singapore and Malaysia.

Mohammed Abdus Sobhan Miah, who worked as a cab driver, pizza chef and drugstore clerk while living in New York City, returned to Bangladesh to serve as an aide to then prime minister Sheikh Hasina. He started secretly snapping up properties in New York worth millions of dollars, according to the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a global network of investigative journalists.

In Malaysia, Bangladeshi citizens occupy fifth position in the list of participants in its ‘Malaysia My Second Home’ programme after the China, Australia, South Korea and Japan nationals.

Until January 2024, as many as 3,604 Bangladeshi citizens had set up their second home in Malaysia without taking any permission from Bangladesh Bank.

Investment from Bangladesh to other countries can only happen with the country’s central bank’s permission.

Praising chief adviser Muhammad Yunus for seeking US assistance to recover the money laundered there by Bangladeshis during meeting with secretary of state Antony Blinken in New York on September 26, Dhaka University economics professor MM Akash called his initiative very encouraging.

Publicly identifying the Bangladeshi citizens with illegal assets in different countries will be a big achievement for the interim government, he said.

According to officials of the Financial Institutions Division under the finance ministry, the World Bank’s Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative is a time consuming process.

Seeking legal mutual assistance is often preferable, they said, but also mentioned that the Anti-Corruption Commission’s moves seeking mutual legal assistance from different countries during the immediate past regime made hardly any progress.

Central bank spokesperson Husne Ara Shikha said that they had no update as yet regarding the stolen money repatriation initiative by the interim government.

The spokesperson referred the issue to the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit.

A financial intelligence unit official on condition of anonymity said that the process of repatriating stolen assets was still limited within restructuring a national committee.

The reconstituted committee has yet to fix any date for holding its first meeting, according to the officials.

On August 14, finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed presided over a meeting of the National Coordination Committee on Anti-Money Laundering at the Secretariat.

He directed all relevant bodies to carry out responsibilities within the guideline and regulations.

The illegal outflow of foreign currency, however, excludes the $80 million heist from Bangladesh Bank in 2016 by suspected hackers who laundered the money at casinos in the Philippines.

Only $15 million of the stolen fund was sent back following a Philippines court order, while $66 million has yet to be recovered.​

 

[Saif]

Trimming costs of megaprojects

It is astounding to know that cost of some railway megaprojects was overblown by billions of Taka(s). This is what investigation by the present government has revealed. Hence, it comes as no surprise that drastic cuts are now in the offing. The Dohazari-Cox's Bazar-Ramu-Ghundhum project, originally

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Trimming costs of megaprojects
Syed Mansur Hashim
Published :
Oct 10, 2024 22:00
Updated :
Oct 10, 2024 22:00

It is astounding to know that cost of some railway megaprojects was overblown by billions of Taka(s). This is what investigation by the present government has revealed. Hence, it comes as no surprise that drastic cuts are now in the offing. The Dohazari-Cox's Bazar-Ramu-Ghundhum project, originally estimated to cost Tk 180.34 billion, is now revised downward by Tk 66 billion to Tk 114.34 billion. The other, the Chinese-funded Padma Rail-Link Project that had been purported to be worth Tk 394.47 billion is now to cost Tk 369.47 billion, a savings of Tk 25 billion. The total savings are estimated at Tk 91 billion. This is just two of the many mega-projects undertaken by the previous government.

It was no secret that development project budgets had been inflated to cover kickbacks both to administration and contracting parties. Till now, it had been impossible to get to the bottom of it. Now that there has been a change in the country's administration, such matters are being brought to light. It is obvious that some good is coming out of the various committees that have been formed to look into the state of the country's finances. It will be very interesting to see what the various 'White Papers', which are in various stages of preparation, says.

It is now abundantly clear that a lot of unnecessary components were added to budgets of mega-projects to inflate costs. Again, it has also become painfully obvious that unnecessary projects were adopted by the previous administration to generate business and not development. Many of these projects have been found to be boasting staggering costs which fall apart in the face of closer scrutiny. The crux of the problem with projects such as these is of course, the financing. Very few of the hugely expensive mega infrastructure projects in the country have been financed by soft loans. Rather, commercial loans with shortened repayment periods and steeper interest rates became the backbone of financing projects. No honeymoon lasts forever and the party is now over. The present government is now stuck with the economic burden of the past and it is quite natural that every major project that has been put through the pipeline gets audited.

Besides, time overrun has been synonymous with development projects in Bangladesh. It is now more imperative than ever to scrutinize and identify all the unnecessary projects undertaken to see which can be justified and those that simply have no reason to exist. Of course, that is easier said than done. Many projects are simply too advanced in terms of project completion to be totally discarded. However, it is possible to trim the costs by deleting those components that have no reason to be included in a particular project. Rationalisation is further possible by reassessing the cost of various project components that have been artificially increased to boast profits beyond reason.

In line with that, it has become abundantly clear that the Jamuna rail-bridge construction project is seriously overpriced. According to what ministry of railway (MoR) officials have shared with the Financial Express, "we have started reviewing our ongoing projects. We will rationalize their costs and scope of works". This is very much in line with the review of a slew of expensive infrastructure projects undertaken by the MoR over the past decade and a half. Building rail connectivity and associated infrastructure is an expensive affair. Hence it opens up the necessary scope for graft and that had been fully taken advantage of by political masters of the day.

These committees that have been formed need time to complete their work. The reform agenda is just beginning to take shape and it is obvious that getting back the stupendous amounts of money that have been siphoned off by various members of the preceding ruling class and laundered abroad is going to take a lot of time. Even if the country is able to recover 20 per cent of the estimated US$150.0 billion that is purported to have left the country over the years, the amount will be $30 billion dollars! That sum is nearly 50 per cent more than the current foreign exchange reserves of the country and would help a lot to turn things around for the economy.

These reforms and investigations are obviously uncomfortable for some members of society, because it is difficult to know who has profited from these unjustified and unnecessary project cost escalations. If the interim government is actually serious about making long-lasting changes that will benefit the country's finances and introduce a culture of transparency and accountability, then no stone should be left unturned to get back money laundered abroad. For that to happen, these audits must continue and the White Papers need to be published so that people are not left in the dark anymore and the painful task of recovering monies stolen can begin.​

 

[Saif]

RHD a hotbed of corruption

What has been revealed by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in a recent research study about the level of corruption in the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) is deeply shocking. For decades, this department has been a hotbed of corruption, but the level of graft had reached a new height

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

RHD a hotbed of corruption
FE
Published :
Oct 12, 2024 22:06
Updated :
Oct 12, 2024 22:06

What has been revealed by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in a recent research study about the level of corruption in the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) is deeply shocking. For decades, this department has been a hotbed of corruption, but the level of graft had reached a new height over the last 15 years. The TIB research study has presented how a whole cabal of various interest groups had come together to rip off the national exchequer with hugely over-inflated project costs. The report has stated that political leaders, bureaucrats, engineers, contractors etc., were involved in illegal tradeoff from the road and bridge development projects executed by the RHD during the Fiscal Year 2009-2010 to FY 2023-24.

The graft amounts, according to the study, ranged anywhere from Tk 292.30 billion to Tk 508.35 to develop and construct roads, highways and bridges. Since everyone got a slice of the pie, no one complained - except ordinary citizens. It is the electorate who were left to pick up the pieces of shoddy jobs that were commissioned and quality control was not a priority area. Hence, commissioned road networks had worn out much faster than envisaged (or stated in project documents) and since money had changed hands, mere lip service was paid to address complaints. The immediate-past government had proudly declared "zero tolerance" on corruption. The few individuals who were investigated did never include those who sat at the top of the pyramid (of graft). The minnows were exhibited as examples of the war on corruption. The study that has been carried out goes into detail about the percentage of graft involved in RHD project execution. For instance, it is stated that the bribery amount ranged between 23 per cent and 40 per cent of the work orders. Now that brings the amount to Tk 1.27 trillion over a 15-year period. There were other bribes involved. A certain percentage had to be paid at the time of handing over of work orders to contractors and another amount had to be paid at the time of the payments made against bills submitted following the completion of the project work. So, in total, about 50 per cent of work contract value was paid in bribes.

Now that explains why contractors fail to do quality work on roads and highway projects. The aim is not to deliver quality work but to share funds plundered through irregularities. The media had enough to write on round the year and they covered a part of it. Given that black laws enacted by the Hasina regime to muzzle the press from doing its job, a lot of the disasters are now being exposed.

The question is will the interim government take the TIB study seriously? People want some actions on its part, for, given the past track records, they do not have much faith in any political government's seriousness in tackling graft. The "Ghush-banijjo" as bribery is popularly known in Bangla is a cancer that has devoured everything. Billions of Taka have changed hands and this is one department that cannot be ignored.​

 

[Saif]

Railway station constructed at exorbitant cost

The railway has built a station in Kaliakair of Gazipur at a cost of nearly Tk 580 million with an expectation that more than 10,000 passengers would travel daily between the Gazipur industrial area, Dhaka, and northern Bengal. But an average of only 47 passengers has used the station daily in...

en.prothomalo.com

Railway station constructed at exorbitant cost
Anowar Hossain
Dhaka
Published: 13 Oct 2024, 12: 26

The Bangabandhu Hi-Tech City Station in Kaliakair, Gazipur, modeled after the Kamalapur Station in Dhaka, was constructed at a cost of about Tk 580 million. Only two trains stop here, which means that the revenue is not even enough to cover the salaries and allowances of the officials. The photo was taken on last Wednesday. Masud Rana

The railway has built a station in Kaliakair of Gazipur at a cost of nearly Tk 580 million with an expectation that more than 10,000 passengers would travel daily between the Gazipur industrial area, Dhaka, and northern Bengal.

But on average, only 47 passengers have used the station daily in the past three years.

The total annual expenses for this station, including salaries for the staff and maintenance costs, exceed Tk 3 million, while the average annual income is only about Tk 9,25,000, according to railway sources.

This station, equipped with modern facilities, was inaugurated in 2018 beside the Kaliakair Hi-Tech Park. Six years after its opening, it is found that only two trains stop here: the Tangail Commuter and the Sirajganj Express. In contrast, 40 trains operate on the route from Dhaka to Tangail and northern Bengal, but they do not stop at this station due to a lack of passengers.

Railway sources said passenger services did not improve during the 15 years of the Awami League government. Necessary engines and coaches have not been purchased, and there is a shortage of manpower. Yet, during this period, significant investments have been made in constructing and repairing new railway lines and station buildings, many of which are not being utilized.

Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan, speaking to Prothom Alo on Friday, said that there has been no foresight in project implementation over the past 15 years, and that irregularities are pervasive. He assured that the current government will not undertake projects in such an unplanned manner and that past irregularities will be investigated.

Railway data indicates that out of 484 stations across the country, 116 have been closed during the past government’s tenure. Meanwhile, 146 new station buildings have been constructed, mostly funded by foreign investments. Additionally, 237 station buildings have been repaired and upgraded during this period.

Preferring not to be named, a railway official said that while the previous government emphasized the construction of station buildings and railway lines, there was little interest in purchasing engines and coaches, as that process is time-consuming and offers less commission than construction projects, which attracted more interest from railway ministers, officials, and contractors.

Expenditure higher than income at Kaliakair station
According to railway calculation, the Kaliakair station currently has nine staff members, including a stationmaster and ticket sellers. Their monthly salaries and allowances exceed Tk 200,000. There is a cost for maintenance costs for electricity and water. The total annual expenses stand at over Tk 3 million.

However, the income generated is minimal. In the 2022-23 fiscal year, the station earned only Tk 1.07 million. For the fiscal year 2021-22, the earnings were Tk 1.18 million, and in 2020-21, it was just Tk 525,000. The annual income on an average is Tk 9,25,000.

Railway sources said the project for the construction of this station centered around the Kaliakair Hi-Tech Park was initiated in 2015, with its design modeled after the Kamalapur Railway Station in the capital.

Huge expenditure for iconic station
The construction of an iconic station in Cox’s Bazar, a beach town, was inaugurated last November for the first time. A total of nine new stations have been built along the route from Dohazari in Chattogram to Cox’s Bazar, with the iconic six-storey, seashell-shaped station near Cox’s Bazar costing Tk 2.15 billion.

Spanning 29 acres and 187,000 square feet, it is equipped with a five-star hotel, shopping mall, restaurant, childcare center, and luggage lockers. This air-conditioned station can accommodate 46,000 people and also includes a post office, convention center, information center, ATM booths, and prayer spaces.

According to railway sources, the total cost for constructing 100 kilometers of railway line and nine stations along this route amounted to Tk 154.76 billion.

Preferring not to be named, a railway official said that while an iconic station was deemed necessary in a coastal town, the costs were excessive.

Currently, three pairs of trains operate on this route, with two pairs not stopping at any intermediate stations, while one local train stops at four stations in between. Despite the massive investment in the iconic station, the other stations are not fully utilized.

A station has been constructed in the middle of a village at Bhanga of Faridpur at a cost of Tk 15 billion. The picture was taken at Bamonkanda of Gharua union on Wednesday. Alimuzzaman

Another example of high expenditure on station construction is the Bhanga Railway Station in Faridpur, built at a cost of Tk 1.5 billion.

This station is part of the Padma Bridge railway link project, which has a total budget exceeding Tk 390 billion, including the construction of a 169-kilometer railway line from Dhaka through the Padma Bridge to Jashore and 14 new stations.

Railway sources said that the new Bhanga station is located five kilometers from the Bhanga junction and 12 kilometers from the Shibchar station in Madaripur. The old junction has been repaired and expanded under the project. There are no notable towns or landmarks between these two stations. The Bhanga station was built in the middle of a field at a high cost. There are multiple platforms and the station is three story building. Initially, there were no plans to construct a station at such a high cost.

According to railway sources, the inclusion of this massive station was influenced by the then-chief whip of parliament, Noor-e-Alam Chowdhury (Liton Chowdhury), and his brother, former MP for Bhanga, Mujibur Rahman Chowdhury (Nixon Chowdhury), who are related to the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. After the government’s fall, both of them went into hiding, and their comments could not be obtained.

An official, who preferred not to be named, said that Liton Chowdhury and Nixon Chowdhury pressured the authorities to build this station under the pretext of establishing an Olympic Village and an international airport in Madaripur.

Station remains unused, but expenses continue

The Rooppur Railway Station in Ishwardi, Pabna, was constructed at a cost of Tk 3.36 billion for transporting materials for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Project, and a 26-kilometer railway line was built. The line was inaugurated in February last year, but no trains have begun operations yet, and the railway authorities do not know when trains will run at this station.

Railway sources said that a new line has been installed in the Akhaura-Laksham section of the Dhaka-Chattogram railway route with funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Thirteen stations, including Maynamati, Lalmai, and Alishwar in Comilla, were modernized under this project, but no trains have stopped at these stations since their opening in 2018.

Another line has been constructed in the Laksham-Chinki Astana section of the Dhaka-Chittagong railway with funding from Japan's international organization JICA. Stations in Nauti, Sharshadi, Kalidah, and Mohuriganj in Comilla were modernised under the project, but trains do not stop at these stations either.

Additionally, at least four new stations along the new railway line from Faridpur to Gopalganj also do not have train services. These are located in Gopalganj's Tungipara, Borashi, Chandradighalia, Kashiani's Choto-Bahirbag, and Chapta, which opened in 2018.

Station repair project at Mujib year

In 2022, a project was initiated for the “Bengali Year Celebration” at a cost of nearly Tk 2 billion, aimed at repairing 55 stations and raising platform heights. This also included the repair of 50 coaches and some railway lines.

Railway sources said that the modernized Chattogram and Khulna stations were also repaired under this project. The Chattogram station had been modernized at a cost of Tk 2.15 billion, while the Khulna and Benapole stations were modernized for Tk 850 million under one project.

Although trains do not stop at Bangladesh Agricultural University in Mymensingh and the Joshodolpur station in Kishoreganj, both stations were modernized under the Mujib Year project.

Railway officials said that the project during the Mujib Year was initiated at the interest of the then railway minister Nurul Islam Sujan. Many of these projects were unnecessary, and the quality of work was poor.
Lack of focus on service

During the past 15 and a half years of the Awami League government, over Tk 710 billion was spent on major projects for railway lines, stations, and infrastructure. However, due to a lack of necessary engines and coaches during this time, the number of trains could not be increased.

According to railway records, there are about two thousand passenger coaches, of which approximately 1,500 are usable. The rest remain in facilities for repair work. As a result, the same coach is used on multiple routes, making it difficult to run trains according to schedule. The railway has about 300 engines, with 180 of them being over 20 years old, which are considered out of date.

Professor at the Civil Engineering Department at BUET Md Hadiuzzaman said that the main goal of building large stations was to give the projects a 'mega' status. The primary goal of the railway is passenger service, which is currently nonexistent. Local trains are being discontinued due to a lack of engines and coaches, and trains are being forced to run on different lines. Therefore, without a comprehensive approach, the construction of station buildings and new railway lines is nothing but waste.

*This article, originally published in Prothom Alo print and online editions, has been rewritten in English by Rabiul Islam​

 

[Saif]

A new addition to Benazir’s legacy of deceit

Corruption, grabbing minority lands to build resorts and using excessive force to crush dissent -- the name of Benazir Ahmed, once one of the most powerful figures in the country’s law enforcement, has long been synonymous with deceit or fraud.

www.thedailystar.net

A new addition to Benazir’s legacy of deceit
Former IGP concealed his profession, skipped verifications to get four passports, says ACC

Corruption, grabbing minority lands to build resorts and using excessive force to crush dissent -- the name of Benazir Ahmed, once one of the most powerful figures in the country's law enforcement, has long been synonymous with deceit or fraud.

Adding to the former police chief's notorious legacy, he has been found to have obtained multiple passports by misrepresenting his professional status and bypassing mandatory verifications.

Hiding his real identity, Benazir fraudulently acquired three Machine-Readable Passports (MRPs) and an e-passport by claiming to be in private service.

The Anti-Corruption Commission, after conducting a thorough investigation, uncovered the passport fraud involving Benazir, who held top roles such as the commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, director general of the Rapid Action Battalion, and the inspector general of poilce between 2010 and 2020.

The findings have led to a formal case being filed against him and four officials from the Department of Immigration and Passports.

The investigation revealed that Benazir not only misused his power to sidestep the mandatory Special Branch (SB) verification, but also skipped obtaining a no objection certificate from his department, which is required for government employees applying for a passport.

ACC Deputy Director Hafizul Islam filed the case on Sunday with its Integrated District Office-1 in Dhaka.

The accused consist of former directors of the Divisional Passport and Visa Office in Agargaon -- Fazlul Haque, Munshi Muyid Ikram, and Md Abdullah Al Mamun -- along with Sahena Haque, a technical manager for the e-passport and Automated Border Control Project.

The scheme began on October 11, 2010, when Benazir, then serving as deputy inspector general, surrendered his handwritten passport (No E0017616) and applied for an MRP.

On his application, Benazir falsely listed his profession as "private service", bypassing an NOC. Fazlul Haque, despite knowing Benazir's true identity, approved the issuance of an ordinary passport without conducting any SB verification.

The same tactic was repeated on two subsequent occasions -- once in 2014 while Benazir was the DMP commissioner and again in 2018 when he was director general of Rab.

In each instance, the officials involved turned a blind eye, allowing Benazir to secure new passports without proper scrutiny.

The most recent case came in 2020 when Benazir applied for an e-passport, this time with the help of co-defendant Abdullah Al Mamun, again bypassing the SB verification and NOC requirements.

The accused officials conspired with him in violations of Penal Code sections related to cheating, forgery, and abetment, as well as the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, and the Bangladesh Passport Order, 1973, as per ACC sources.

ACC Director General Akhtar Hossain said Benazir's actions constitute a blatant breach of the law.

In an investigation launched in April, the ACC began probing allegations of illegal asset accumulation by Benazir, his wife Zeeshan Mirza, and their two daughters.

Selina Banu, additional director general of the department of immigration and passports, said, "SB verification is mandatory for government officials. However, in these cases, Benazir Ahmed resorted to fraud."​