ACC set to sue 14 top BTCL officials for Tk 6.0 billion embezzlement

FE Team | Published: February 05, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

The Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) is set to sue nearly 14 top officials of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited (BTCL) on charge of misappropriating about Tk 6.0 billion (600 crore) of government money by erasing international incoming call list, reports UNB. An ACC inquiry team has already finalised a report on the BTCL's graft and put it forward to the Commission for approval to file a case. The four-member inquiry team, led by its deputy director SM Sahidur Rahman, is currently conducting probe into the irregularities of BTCL. After the Commission's approval, the team will file a case against the top official, including the managing director of the BTCL, an ACC official told the news agency. Official sources said the International Truck Exchange (ITX) of the BTCL receives the international incoming calls through the international gateway and the ITX diverts the calls to the ICX (Interconnection Exchange) to reach it to the mobile operators. The incoming call list is recorded in both ITX and ICX stages. But, scrutinising the incoming call list of ITX-5 and ITX-7 located in Mohakhali during December 2011 to November 2012 in both ITX and ICX parts, the BTCL inquiry team found massive inconsistency. It found that the vested quarter in the BTCL removed a huge number of incoming calls from the ITX stage, but it remains intact in the ICX stage. As the BTCL top officials -- from the managing director to sub-divisional engineers -- were involved in the massive irregularities, they will be sued for swindling the public money totalling about Tk 6.0 billion by removing incoming call list from the ITX, the ACC sources said. On November 5 last year, the ACC also filed five cases against 14 people, including six BTCL officials on charge of misappropriating government's revenue of Tk 205 crore. The six accused BTCL officials are its former managing director Abu Sayed Khan, former directors (international) M Mahfuzar Rahman and M Mahbubur Rahman, chief divisional engineer M Abdul Halim, divisional engineer AKM Asaduzzaman, and member (maintenance and operation) Engr M Towfiq. Earlier, the inquiry team detected that five international telecom carriers -- Singapore-based Digitek Pte Limited, M/s I Power Communications Pte Limited and NTS Global Pte Limited; America-based M/s AristoCall Services Inc, and UK-based M/s Simple Telecom Limited -- in collaboration with BTCL officials embezzled the public money. Of the total amount, Digitek Pte Limited alone swindled about 964.2 million while M/s I Power Communications Pte Limited nearly Tk 450 million and NTS Global Pte Limited Tk 243.9 million, M/s AristoCall Services Inc over Tk 155 million and M/s Simple Telecom Limited Tk 237 million.