The Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) has detected huge corruption involving millions of taka in the transport section of the Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), previously known as BTTB.
ACC Director General (admin) Colonel Hanif Iqbal disclosed this while briefing newsmen at the Commission's regular meeting in the city Monday, reports UNB.
The anti-graft watchdog's special team constituted to investigate corruption in the BTCL has unveiled massive corruption in transport allowance and repairing of vehicles and their fuel consumption, he said.
He said the ACC special team is mainly concentrating on these three areas at the moment and has found that millions of taka have been misappropriated since 2001-02 fiscal year until date.
On corruption in the name of transport allowance, Mr Hanif said Tk 19.10 million was shown spent for allowance in 2007-08.
Of the money, Tk 6.56 million was disbursed and the remaining Tk 12.50 million misappropriated through fake vouchers.
Similarly, Tk 22.60 million and Tk 24.60 million were misappropriated in 2006-07 and 2005-06 fiscal years respectively. The money misappropriated from 2000-2001 to 2004-2005 fiscal years is under investigation of the special team.
About corruption in repairing of vehicles, over Tk 300 million was misappropriated in six years (from 2000-01 to 2005-06).
For instance, it was shown that Tk 69.10 million was spent in 2000-01 fiscal year on repairing of 104 (now 81) vehicles of the BTCL headquarters. But, actually workshop bills were paid for only Tk 4.70 million and the remaining Tk 64.30 million was misappropriated through fake vouchers.
In this connection, Mr Hanif mentioned that in 2000-01 fiscal year Tk 0.60 million was spent on repairing of each vehicle by which one reconditioned vehicle could have been bought.
The ACC special team also unearthed corruption in spending of fuel for the BTCL vehicles in the last eight years (2000-01 to 2007-08).
For example, it was shown that Tk 27.90 million was spent on fuel in 2004-05 fiscal year. But, the ACC team found out that huge money was spent showing fake destinations and spending excessive fuel.
In some cases, it was shown that some vehicles consumed even 500-600 litres of fuel every month, though there was no provision of spending more than 200 litres for a car.
The team is investigating to find out as to how much money has been misused and misappropriated in this field.
When asked how many BTCL officials were involved in this huge corruption, the ACC director general parried the question.
He told a questioner that all levels of staff were involved in the corruption.
Mr Hanif said the special team formed to look into corruption in Education Ministry is questioning individuals, mostly retired ones, about Monthly Payment Order (MPO)-related corruption.
Responding to a question, he said as per the existing law, retired officials could be brought under law.
The ACC director general said the special team to investigate corruption in Roads and Highways Department (RHD) was continuing its works.
