Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) has filed a case against eight people including Aminul Hasan, the Commissioner of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and the Managing Director (MD) of the state-owned mobile phone network service company Teletalk Shahab Uddin for allegedly denying a loan of 521 crore 79 lakh 60 thousand taka from the Japan International Development Agency (JICA).
On Tuesday, February 27, ACC Assistant Director Muhammad Zainal Abedin filed the case as the plaintiff. ACC Deputy Director (Public Relations) Aktarul Islam confirmed the matter to the media.
The other defendants in the case are – Managing Director (MD) of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) and former Director of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL)-1 Moshiur Rahman, General Manager (Operation and Maintenance) of BSCCL Azam Ali, former DE-5 of BTCL Md. Ataur Rahman, Former Director Maqsudur Rahman Akand, GM (General Manager) Ashok Kumar Mandal, Former MD (Managing Director) Mahfuz Uddin Ahmad.
They have been charged under Sections 409, 420, 468, 471, 511, 109 of the Penal Code and Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947.
According to the statement, the accused have misused the government power without fulfilling their duties properly. Their intention was to eliminate the lowest bidder in the Telecommunication Network Development (TND) project tender process and award the work to the contractor of their choice instead. In doing so, they caused undue delay by not following procurement rules and JICA guidelines, including critical changes in pre-qualification evaluation, fixing estimates two months after the original tender was called. That is why the donor organization JICA lost interest and took back 521 crore 79 lakh 60 thousand taka at 0.01 percent easy terms interest on May 7, 2015. Through this, the country has been deprived of a major credit facility and the country’s finances have been damaged.