BTRC Boots Bureaucrat for Bribery and Breach of Trust
Hundreds of crores worth of FDRs have been found in various banks under anonymous and benami names. Ten flats and 50 decimals of land in Dhaka city are registered under the names of his wife and close relatives. Without submitting bills or vouchers, he embezzled Tk 11,79,718 out of Tk 53 lakh allocated for administrative expenses. He also took a Tk 5 lakh bribe from one Abul Basar, promising to reactivate some deactivated corporate SIM cards. Furthermore, by granting approval for telecommunication value-added services to a fully foreign-owned but unregistered company, he paved the way for government revenue evasion.
This is the profile of Amzad Hossain Nipu, Deputy Director of the Administration Division at the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and former Personal Secretary to a BTRC Chairman. The BTRC investigation commission has found proof of his involvement in bribery and these irregularities.
According to the minutes of the BTRC commission meeting held on August 25, in addition to corruption and irregularities, there are also allegations of harassment and oppression of employees against him. Based on these findings, the meeting decided to permanently dismiss Amzad Hossain from his post.
The minutes state: “Since the allegations of misconduct under Rule 3(b) and corruption under Rule 3(d) of the Government Servants (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 2018, have been proven against temporarily suspended Deputy Director (Administration) Md. Amzad Hossain, a decision has been taken to award him the major penalty of dismissal from service under Rule 4(3)(d) of the same Rules and Rule 49(1)(b)(u) of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (Employees) Service Regulations, 2022.”
However, Amzad Hossain rejected the accusations, saying, “A baseless report has been made. I will take action once I receive the dismissal letter.”
Earlier, following the July mass uprising, 14 allegations of corruption and misconduct were filed against him. The commission confirmed the authenticity of five of them. Consequently, on August 11, Amzad Hossain was temporarily suspended and a departmental case was filed against him.
He also faces accusations of mobilizing 10,000 people across the country to suppress the anti-discrimination student movement. Allegations further state that he had threatened Internet Service Providers (ISPs) with license cancellation if they did not take to the field against the movement. Leveraging his political background in student politics with the ruling party’s student wing, he allegedly indulged in widespread irregularities and corruption soon after securing his BTRC post.
To probe these allegations, the BTRC formed an inquiry committee headed by Brigadier General Md. Aminul Haque, Director General (SM) of the Commission.
It is also worth noting that on August 26, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed a case against former BTRC Chairman Engineer Mohiuddin Ahmed on charges of revenue evasion. The case implicated the Chairman of Summit Communications Limited and six others for evading Tk 10,24,52,652 in revenue.
