The Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB) moves to take legal action against a dozen ICT companies that disappeared with money borrowed from the Equity and Entrepreneurship Fund (EEF), competent sources said.
They said the ICB move came after Bangladesh Bank (BB) had requested it to take action against six ICT companies which took Tk 32.5 million from the government-sponsored EEF and ran away without paying back the money.
In this regard, the central bank provided general power of attorney in favour of the ICB to file cases against the frauds.
Dreams Soft Ltd took Tk 5.0 million, Intersat Software Services Tk 4.5 million, Jupiter IT Ltd Tk 5.0 million, Marfee Maccan Consulting Ltd Tk 8.0 million, Information Technology Matrix Bangladesh Ltd Tk 5.0 million and Resource Technology Ltd took Tk 5.0 million from the EEF nearly eight years back.
The central bank recently forwarded the names of these ICT companies with recommendation for legal action against them.
The companies allegedly fled from the addresses they used in loan documents, without paying back any single penny.
Sources said Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) carried out a survey on EEF projects and could not trace 13 ICT companies which took loans from the fund.
Later, the central bank and the ICB jointly visited the addresses the ICT companies used in loan documents but could not find existence of 12 of them.
General Manager of the EEF wing of the ICB Wahiduzzaman Khandaker told the FE Tuesday legal action is underway against the fraudulent companies which fled with public money.
"We are taking preparation to file cases against all the traceless companies, including the six forwarded by the central back," he said.
Mr Khandaker said those fraud companies will also be put on blacklist in future activities with the ICB.
The central bank launched the EEF in 1999 with an initial allocation of Tk 1.0 billion aiming to promote agro-based industries and ICT sector initiatives. Later, in December 2000, the operational activity of the fund was transferred to the ICB.
Until November last year, some Tk 24.41 billion had been approved as loan in favour of 1,306 agro-industries and Tk 1.29 billion in favour of 89 ICT projects.
However, during the period, some Tk 8.52 billion and Tk 698 million were disbursed in favour 500 agro-based and 60 ICT-sector projects respectively.
On the other hand, Tk 1.08 billion could be realised from 58 agro-based and Tk 149 million from 13 ICT projects.
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