Crippling Corruption by Awami League regime

[idune]

Tk 10cr in counterfeit notes seized in Dhaka

Staff Correspondent

The police produce 10 people, arrested in possession of forged notes, before the media at DMP media centre in Dhaka on Sunday. — Sourav LaskerThe police produce 10 people, arrested in possession of forged notes, before the media at DMP media centre in Dhaka on Sunday. — Sourav Lasker

The Detective Branch has seized a huge amount of counterfeit currencies of different denominations and printing materials worth
an estimated Tk 10 crore and arrested 10, including a ruling party leader, at places in the capital city, officials sai8d on Sunday.
The police arrested the 10 people in possession of Tk 2,50,22,000 in forged notes and Rs 88,000 in the drives before of Eid-ul-Azha, the Detective Branch’s additional deputy commissioner (west) Mashiur Rahman said.

The Detective Branch team, led by Mashiur, have seized three laptops, six printers, colour, chemicals and other materials during raids on Kamrangirchar and Demra on Saturday.
The ring leader, Zaman Biswas, also known as Duruzzaman and Nuruzzaman, 50, and his younger brother Khaliduzzaman, 35, and Abdur Rahman, 36, Babu Miah also known as Totla Babu, 28, Sujan also known as Destiny Sujan, 27, Manjurul Kamal also known as Kamal Master, 60, Jalal Uddin, 25, Shanta also known as Shabana, 25, Mosammat Maksuda, 20, and Lima Akhter, 20, were produced before journalists at the DMP media centre where they admitted to have been committing the crime for many years.

Zaman Biswas, also a joint secretary of the Awami Muktijoddha League, was involved in counterfeiting notes and others were involved in circulating the notes, the police said. Zaman’s younger brother Khaliduzzaman is a student of the Rajshahi Law College.

Zaman, who once worked as a commercial painter, told the media that he had been making counterfeit notes for 14 years.Zaman, who had been in jail for 21 months after his arrest in 1999 in another case of the counterfeiting of notes, claimed that he could produce currency notes of most of the countries but the US dollar.

‘Apart from Indian rupees, I have already produced notes of Bhutan and Myanmar,’ he said.
Asked why they were counterfeiting Indian rupees, Zaman said that an Indian called Uttam from Maldah used to take the forged notes from him. ‘Uttam took forged rupees from me 10 to 12 times in the past 14 years.’ Zaman said that most of his fellows were in jail, and the ones who are in hiding now had set up a strong syndicate to maintain the trade in forged notes.

Shanta, who worked as an apparel worker, learnt how to forge notes from her husband Sirajul Islam, she said adding that she had improved on the quality of watermarks.
The detectives at the briefing said that they had intensified their vigil as about 10 such rings were on the prowl before Eid when a huge amount of money is transacted.
The arrested were sent to jail after two cases had been filed with the Demra and the Kamrangirchar police.

The state minister for home, Shamsul Haque Tuku, meanwhile on Sunday, said that counterfeit note detectors should be used in all cattle markets before Eid-ul-Azha.

New Age | Newspaper

 

[idune]

BDBL selling foreclosed plots at throwaway prices
Political pressure plays its part in the acts

Jasim Uddin Haroon

The state-owned Bangladesh Development Bank Limited (BDBL) is selling out foreclosed land at rates far below the market prices, people familiar with the matter have told the FE.

On an average each year the BDBL is selling land of 30 projects of its loan defaulters, worth more than Tk 1.0 billion, out of 330 such projects, since its inception through the merger of the Bangladesh Shilpa Bank (BSB) and the Shilpa Rin Sangstha (BSRS) in 2010. This year the number of sold-out industrial plots may rise to 40, according to official sources with the bank.

The industrial plots with all infrastructure facilities including those of power and gas connections are located in different industrial hubs at prime locations of the country.

Industrial upland with ready infrastructures is very scarce in the country and the prices are surging by leaps and bounds every year.

The sale of such ready industrial plots belonging to loan-defaulter entrepreneurs is reducing the BDBL's earnings to a large extent and also encouraging an unfair means in the country's key financial sector, sources said.

Sources in the real estate sector said prices of the land would be at least two to three times higher, if those had been sold competitively at the market prices.

Insiders said in many cases the financial institution has been abusing the government's order regarding recovery of the cost of fund, issued in February, 2008.

According to the government order, in cases like natural calamities and death of owners, the bank can accept prices below the cost of fund in selling the project land of defaulter-borrowers.

The BDBL has sold out a number of such plots over the last six months.

It sold out the Shah Mukdom Textile Mills in the BSCIC estate in Rajshahi at much lower prices.

Shah Mukdom Textile Mills, nearly two kilometres north of the Rajshahi City Corporation office, was established on 115 kathas or 82,500 square feet of land and it was an A-type industrial plot.

The market price of the land was Tk 80 million. But it was sold at only Tk 25 million and ruling party lawmaker Enamul Hoque bought it recently.

However, the local people said the market price was far higher, Tk 700,000 per katha, as it is located at the main industrial hub in the country's northern belt.

Enamul Hoque MP of the Baghmara constituency in Rajshahi, who bought the land, told the FE Thursday: "I've actually bought the land at Tk 60 million as I had to pay some money to the owners of the mill."

Mr Enam, who intends to set up a factory on the land, admitted that land prices in the area ranged between Tk 500,000 and Tk 700,000 per katha.

The BDBL sold another industrial plot of the Wase Leather in Gazipur recently at Tk 15 million or 1.5 crore. According to the industry insiders, it should have been sold at more than Tk 40 million.

Moreover, the BDBL has taken a move to sell out another lucrative industrial plot of the Sripur Textile Mills located on 10 acres of land near the Dhaka-Mymensingh Road in Gazipur.

The textile mill owned by late Agha Yusuf was one of the largest mills and it fell into the bad loan category in 1996.

Many influential people are now lobbying to purchase the industrial plot at a much lower price than the disbursed loan amount of Tk 620 million or 62 crore.

The BDBL has already paid Tk 300 million to the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), as the project has failed. The IDB financed the project under a deal executed in 1993.

Most of the projects of the BDBL's loan defaulters were undertaken during the late 1970s or 80s, and a number of their owners are no more alive. In many cases, land of these projects is being sold to close relatives of the loan defaulters through manipulation, sources said.

People familiar with such deals told the FE that while selling such land, the bank did not even comply with the last valuation prepared by its own survey firms.

They also alleged that the BDBL barely published advertisements in newspapers, inviting interested buyers to quote their prices.

A senior official at the bank told the FE: "We cannot avoid political pressure."

He, however, said they were happy over the amount of recovery equivalent to the cost of fund.

"We don't bother about market prices or competitive prices while selling the land. We sold an industrial plot at Tongi at a price that was, by any measure, very low."

He hinted that it was sold to a close relative of a board member of the bank.

The BDBL now has ten members on its board, all nominated by the government, as the state holds the cent per cent stake in the bank.

He said: "The board is the highest authority. We have no say about acceptance of any quotation on land prices. It's all up to them."

The BDBL usually publishes notices to auction off land of the project concerning the loan defaulters under the Section 12 (3) of the Ortho Rin Adalot 2003.

Soon after publication of a notice, the defaulter usually files a case with the higher court seeking status quo on the auction.

Then, if the court rejects the appeal, the BDBL files a case with the Ortho Rin Adalat. The court normally hands down its verdict in favour of the bank.

A senior official at the law department said: "The court takes nearly 18 months to award the bank the title of a loan defaulter's project land."

The FE also interviewed officials of five land survey firms enlisted with the BDBL, who said they quote different rates for the land to be sold, including market prices with the latest valuation.

"I've never seen the bank to follow the market prices," said an official of one of the survey firms said.

He raised a question about integrity of the bank's debt department, involved in calculating the cost of fund.

However, BDBL Managing Director Dr Md Zillur Rahman declined to comment on the issue of selling land below the market prices and said the bank was performing well.

"Our performance in every aspect including non-performing loans is quite all right," Mr Rahman added.

The BDBL was incorporated as a limited company in November 2009, following a government decision to merge the BSB and the BSRS, two public sector development financing entities.

The BDBL launched its commercial operation in January 2010, and is involved in development financing, commercial banking and capital market operation.

Financial Express :: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh

 

[BATMAN]

http://www.defence.pk/forums/bangla...eep-pro-pakistan-forces-out-power-hasina.html

 

[Major Shaheb]

Where has all the electricity gone?


M. A. Taslim

There is something very puzzling about the electricity situation in the country. The government claims to have tremendously improved the situation during the last three years. But the severity of load shedding with the onset of summer conditions and the unprecedented decision to cut electricity supply to the nation's industries for 12 hours a day suggest otherwise.

Electricity shortages had reached a crisis proportion at the beginning of the tenure of this government. In order to solve the crisis quickly, the government adopted what appeared at the time to be a very convenient strategy, viz. private rental power plants. However, when implemented it turned out to be a very expensive and injudicious one which worsened the crisis. What was only an electricity crisis has now snowballed into a full blown budgetary crisis affecting the entire economy.

In order to make the rental plants sufficiently lucrative to the private players, the government had to provide sovereign guarantees regarding prices at which fuel oil would be supplied to the plant operators, and electricity would be purchased by the government. Since very large gaps have emerged between the guaranteed prices and the prices paid or received by the government, the rental plants have to be provided with enormous amounts in subsidies. It is estimated that during the current fiscal year subsidy payments to the rental power plants might exceed Tk320 billion, i.e. about one-third of the total tax revenue of the government.

This enormous subsidy requirement has put the government finances in a quandary, which has been further intensified by the drying up of expected foreign funds due to difficulties on the foreign policy front. The government was forced to take the unprecedented step to shift part of the current subsidy to the next budget. This may open up a new door to further mismanagement of the economy.

The evolution of electricity supply over the last two decades is shown in the table below. The installed capacity (derated) of the country increased by fits and starts during 1990-91 and 2005-06 from 2398 megawatts to 5275 megawatts - an average annual growth of 5.8 per cent. During the same period peak hour generation of electricity increased from 1672 to 3812 megawatts. The average annual growth rate of peak hour generation was 6.1 percent suggesting a slight improvement in the efficiency with which installed capacity was converted into peak generation. No addition was made to the installed capacity during the following two years when the country was under a caretaker government, but peak hour generation increased by about 8 per cent during these two years suggesting further improvement in the efficiency of generation.

A breakdown of the increments in capacity by periods is also shown in the table below. The growth rate of installed capacity was 4.4 per cent during 1990-91 to 1995-96. The rate increased to 6.6 per cent during the five year period 1995-96 to 2000-01, but fell to 5.7 per cent during the next five year period 2000-01 to 2005-06. During the first 38 months of the current regime the installed capacity took a quantum leap - it increased by an annual average of 11.4 per cent. Actually most of the increase was achieved in one single year, i.e. 2010-11 when quick rental power plants made appearance.

The peak generation increased by 5.7 per cent during the first period and 7.8 per cent during the second period above. It fell to 4.7 per cent during the next five-year period. The remarkable thing is that during the current regime it increased by only 5.0 per cent. In other words, the quantum leap in installed capacity did not show up in the actual supply of electricity to the consumers.

To date the ground reality is that the advent of the quick rental power plants did not improve electricity generation. The rate of increase of peak generation during the current regime is actually lower than what it was during the first two periods mentioned above when electricity was generated the normal way at normal cost.

So where did all the electricity installed during the current regime disappear?

The answer probably lies in the marked drop in the efficiency of electricity generation, which declined from 77 percent in 2009-10 to only 63.6 per cent in fiscal year (FY) 2010-11. But why was there a sudden drop in efficiency? From various news reports it transpires that the reasons are: (1) there has been a reduction in the output of the older (mostly public) power plants, (2) power plants in general are operating below potential because of shortages of fuel or other reasons, and (3) the peak generation of the quick rental plants is less than their stated capacity.

According to Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) website, the peak generation of PDB has dropped from more than 2555 MW on April 30, 2010 to only 1506 MW on February 29, 2012, i.e. a reduction of 41 per cent

There seems to be little doubt that the advent of the rental power plants has taken a heavy toll on the public generation capacity. Private generation has discouraged the government from maintaining or augmenting public generation of electricity.
The reduction in the amount of electricity generation due to shortages of fuel at the power plants was 282 MW toward the end of April 2010, but rose to 1103 MW by the end of February 2012. It is obvious that some of the plants were not operating at their peak capacity due to inadequate supply of fuel. The government was not able to arrange adequate fuel to all plants. Apparently it did not fully appreciate the financing and logistics problems associated with the doubling of fuel demand in a single year due to the setting up of the fuel-guzzling rental power plants.

Economic management is widely believed to be the weakest link of the government. However, the ineptness with which the electricity issue has been handled is simply mind-boggling. The government seemed to have embarked on the rental plant road without a clear idea about its finances, logistics and consequences. For example, the government now claims that the blowout in subsidy is due to unforeseen increases in the prices of petroleum products and not due to policy lapses. It seems absurd that the government could have planned (in 2009 let us say) on the basis of current prices, which were clearly very low in the aftermath of the most severe worldwide recession since the Great Depression. Even a cursory glance at the time series of the monthly crude oil price would have revealed a clear upward trend since the beginning of the millennium such that the future price increases should have been anticipated and hedged against.

The government also claims that despite its 'praise-worthy success' in electricity generation, the situation has been made worse by the rising pace of electricity demand because of the rising prosperity of the people made possible by its policies. This certainly has an element of truth. The demand for every normal good and service, including electricity, rises with income. A good economic manager builds this into his forecast in order to ensure that future supply meets the increased demand. The above claim seems to suggest that either the government was unaware of this implication or it failed to accommodate the increased demand because of real resource constraints. If the latter is true one must question how the same government could have set the growth target at 7.0 per cent and above when it is unable to meet the energy demand at even 6.0 per cent plus growth rate.

Much hope was pinned on the government's resolve to quickly overcome power shortages. However, within three years the hopes have transmuted into frustration. In attempting to solve a nagging problem, the government seems to have created several more. The hapless people will be forced to bear the consequences of the blunder of their government; they have reasons to be angry.

[A note on semantics: Most of the new capacity has been installed by private companies, and not by the government. Indeed the capacity of the government power plants has declined. Of course, it is to the credit of the government that it has allowed greater space to the private sector. It should be borne in mind that when the contracts expire the rental plant capacity will disappear, unless the government has something else in mind.]

(The writer is Professor and Chairman, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka.)

Where has all the electricity gone?

H.M. Ershad was far better than this.

 

[idune]

Seven new private varsities to set sail

The government has approved seven more private universities, allegedly on political considerations, raising the total number to 70.

Education ministry made an announcement in this regard Sunday, after screening a large number of applications.

Of the universities, two were permitted to start academic activities in Dhaka—one belonging to Bangladesh Workers’ Party President Rashed Khan Menon, also chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on education ministry, and the other to physician AK Azad.

The name of Menon’s university is Sonargaon University and AK Azad’s one is University of Health Sciences.

The others in the bunch are North Western University of KCC Mayor Talukder Abdul Khaleque, Feni University of Alauddin Nasim, former APS to premier Sheikh Hasina, Port City University of former Chhatra League president Anamul Haque Shamim, Khwaza Yunus Ali University in Sirajganj and Britania University in Comilla.

Ministry sources said the owners of the last two private universities are expatriates.

The ministry approved the universities after scrutinising a lot of 107 applications.

Earlier in March, the government also approved eight private universities to be established by persons loyal to the ruling Awami League.

Furthermore, in October, the government approved Exim Bank Agriculture University.

daily sun | | Seven new private varsities to set sail

 

[idune]

LNG TERMINAL
[Awami League] Govt to award project without tender process
Manjurul Ahsan

The government has decided to set up a floating liquefied natural gas terminal off Maheshkhali island in an unsolicited way scrapping the tender process as the bidders wanted facilities beyond the bidding conditions, officials said. Petrobangla, the state-run Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources Corporation, will choose one from the four short-listed firms and will give work order in next three months.

Following a bidding process, on December 12, 2011 Petrobangla short-listed Bermuda-based Golar LNG Energy, Singapore-based Astra Oil and Excelerate Energy Consortium, South Korea’s Samsung C&T Corporation and India’s Hiranandani Electricity Private Limited for building the floating LNG terminal.

On Tuesday, a task force headed by power division secretary Md Abul Kalam Azad for building the multi-billion dollar floating LNG terminal project, took the decision on the plea of gas supply shortage. After the meeting, the prime minister’s energy adviser Tawfiq-E-Elahi Chowdhury told reporters that the authorities would select one of the short-listed firms through one-on-one negotiation under the Speedy Supply of Power and Energy (Special Provision) Act 2010.

He said that the government would have to implement the project on an emergency basis to meet the demand for fuel although LNG was expensive.The task force held the meeting as the most ‘eligible’ bidder Astra declined to turn up with financial and technical details in line with the bidding conditions despite repeated requests by Petrobangla.

Astra was identified as the most ‘eligible’ of the four bidders as three other firms did not submit bidding documents for the project although Petrobangla extended the time for their submission four times after January 31. Submission finally closed on June 11. Astra’s offer to realise the installation cost in 15 years by charging $0.39 for processing each million cubic feet of gas was acceptable, officials said. But its request for free equipment procurement contract , credit support and other facilities were not clear and needed to be discussed before a deal is signed, they said.

Meanwhile, Petrobangla extended the project implementation duration by six months to 24 months as the bidders did not find it feasible to implement the project in 18 months set by the authorities in the bidding document. The government, after assuming office in 2009, decided to import liquefied natural gas to supply 500 million cubic feet of natural gas to the national grid from 2013.

Now, it will not be possible to import the LNG before 2015, an energy division official said. With the delay in the installation of the terminal for importing liquefied natural gas, the government’s plan to increase gas supply by 1,785 million cubic feet a day by June 2013 has become uncertain as at least 500mmcfd gas was expected from the LNG terminal, he said.The government planned to increase gas supply to 3,800mmcfd, including the 500mmcfd of gas from imported LNG, by 2013.Petrobangla supplies between 2,250 and million cubic feet of gas a day against the demand for more than 3,000 million cubic feet.

New Age | Newspaper

 

[idune]

Awami League looters came up with new name for bribe "one-on-one negotiation". And Speedy Supply of Power and Energy (Special Provision) Act 2010 has been used for looting billions in the name of rental power and now for LNG.

 

[idune]

LICENCE FOR NEW BANKS - Taposh, Nizam get more time to deposit money
Staff Correspondent

The Bangladesh Bank’s board of directors on Tuesday extended the time by 2-6 months for the sponsors of two proposed banks to submit related documents and bank draft of Tk 400 crore each for obtaining licences after they failed to meet the October 16 deadline.

The sponsors of Modhumati Bank, led by prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s nephew Fazle Noor Taposh, earlier sought two-month time extension as they failed to arrange the Tk 400 crore fund for the new bank, said BB officials.

The sponsors of NRB Global Bank, led by Nizam Chowdhury, an Awami League leader in USA, sought a six-month time extension for depositing the paid-up capital.

The BB board of directors at a meeting on Tuesday, however, gave Taposh two and a half months of additional time as the new deadline for Modhumati Bank was set on December 31 this year. The new deadline for NRB Global Bank was set on March 21 next year.

The BB gave approval for setting up Modhumati and NRB Global Bank along with seven other new banks amid huge political pressure by the ruling party Awami League and its allies. There was a condition that the sponsors of the banks would have to submit legally earned money or white money as Tk 400 crore paid-up capital for setting up the banks. Leaders of the ruling parties and the business people loyal to them got the approval for all the banks.

The BB official said that the central bank had taken the decision for extending the deadline for the two proposed banks on the basis of the applications from the sponsors of the banks. Seven other proposed banks submitted documents and bank drafts of their paid-up capital by the deadline.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the BB board headed by the governor, Atiur Rahman, also took a decision for increasing the size of agro-processing refinance scheme to Tk 200 crore from existing Tk 100 crore. Under the refinance scheme, the BB has already disbursed more than Tk 80 crore out of Tk 100 crore to the entrepreneurs, he said. He said entrepreneurs had applied to the banks for loans of another Tk 90 crore under the scheme. Under the circumstances, the BB board increased the fund for the scheme, he said.

The BB did not submit to its board of directors any report on actions it had taken to tackle embezzlement in the banking sector, said a board member. He said the BB would submit the report in the next meeting of its board to be held late December.
The board had asked the BB to take necessary actions to tackle embezzlement in the banking sector after the Hallmark Group scam.

New Age | Newspaper

 

[idune]

4pc was for Abul
Mentions Lavalin official's diary; ACC team files Padma graft conspiracy probe report; 7 officials accused, but Abul left out

M Rahman

An Anti-Corruption Commission enquiry team in its final report has recommended filing case against seven persons, excluding former minister Syed Abul Hossain, for corruption conspiracy in the Padma bridge project.

However, the report, submitted yesterday, says the ACC high-ups should decide on whether Abul Hossain would be sued.

The ACC bosses are split over implicating the ex-minister although the World Bank provided the anti-graft body with “evidence of corruption” against him.

Ramesh Shah, arrested official of Canadian firm SNC Lavalin, in his diary had mentioned Abul as the recipient of 4 percent out of 10pc bribe from the sum fixed for bridge supervision work, sources say.


The 10pc is equivalent to Tk 38 crore.

4pc was for Abul

--------------------------
Questions ACC trying to avoiding:

What percentage Sheikh Hasina gets?
What percentage Joy gets?
What percentage Sheikh Rehana gets?
....

 

[idune]

PADMA BRIDGE GRAFT
ACC drops Abul duo from list of accused

The Anti-Corruption Commission has dropped former communications minister Syed Abul Hossain and former state minister for foreign affairs Abul Hasan Chowdhury from its list of accused in the case of ‘corruption conspiracy’ in the Padma Bridge project.
The commission on Monday filed a case against seven people with the Banani police station, including former secretary of Bridge Division Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan who had already been sent on leave to comply with the World Bank’s conditions.
The six other accused in the case are – Bridge Division executive director (river control) Kazi Mohammad Ferdous, Roads and Highways executive engineer (bridge construction and maintenance division-4) Riaz Ahmad Jaber, Engineering Planners Consultant Ltd deputy managing director Mohammad Mostafa, director of international projects at Canadian construction firm SNC-Lavalin in Toronto Mohammed Ismail, former vice-president at SNC-Lavalin in Toronto Ramesh Shah and former vice-president and general manager at SNC-Lavalin Kevin Wallace.

The ACC deputy director Abdullah-Al-Jahid told reporters that the commission had dropped the Abul duo because of lack of enough evidence.He said, ‘The commission will try to find during investigation if they had involvement in the corruption conspiracy.’The commission had filed the case against them under the Penal Code 161 and Corruption Prevention Act of 1947.
The probe found that the accused had tried to take illegal financial benefits from SNC-Lavalin and it was tantamount to criminal offence according to the law of the land.The FIR said that Mosharraf had formed a seven-member assessment committee ignoring the consulting services manual of the World Bank.

Mosharraf also tried to award the work order to Japanese company Oriental Consultants Company Limited ignoring the rules. Kazi Ferdous acted as main associate of Mosharraf.When they failed to award the work order to Oriental, they started working in favour of SNC-Lavalin and in the process maintained communication with SNC-Lavalin official Ismail, ACC inquiry said.
Accused Mostafa, Riaz and Ramesh were involved with them.

The FIR said that Abul Hossain and Mosharraf Hossain had attended a meeting with Mostafa, Ramesh and Kevin Wallace on May 29, 2011 in Dhaka. After the meeting, the Bangladesh Bridge Authority made recommendations to give the work to SNC-Lavailn on June 19, 2011 before completing the evaluation work.The inquiry said that Abul Hossain had met with some representatives of SNC-Lavalin and other companies at varies stages of the tender process.

‘SNC-Lavalin officials met with Abul Hossain with the help of Abul Hasan,’ ACC inquiry said. The inquiry said that the names of the Abul duo and others appeared in the diary of Ramesh.

On June 29, the World Bank cancelled its credit for the construction of the Padma Bridge after it had found ‘credible evidence’ of corruption by high-level government functionaries in awarding the contract for the project’s supervision to SNC-Lavalin.
The World Bank later agreed to revive the credit only if the commission investigated the corruption allegations under the supervision of a WB panel.

On December 8, the World Bank said that it would provide its stalled credit for Padma Bridge construction only if the Anti-Corruption Commission ‘launches a full and fair investigation’ into the ‘corruption conspiracy’ in the project on the ‘basis of evidence.’

WB restated its position in a statement two days after its anti-corruption expert panel completed a second review of ACC’s probe into the ‘conspiracy of corruption’ into the country’s largest infrastructure project.


New Age | Newspaper

 

[idune]

PDB to buy Tk 800cr GT spares without tenders

Manjurul Ahsan

The Power Development Board is planning to buy spares worth Tk800 crore for gas turbines at its different plants without tender, breaking from a 40-year practice of procuring them through international tenders, officials said.

[Note: Scale of Awami League sponsored looting]
The officials alleged that the power board would have to spend up to five times the amount spent earlier through tender process.

[Note: Awami League corruption tactics]
A power board official said that the PDB had kept the procurement of spares suspended for more than one year so that the authorities could go for direct procurement bypassing tender process in the name of quick repair and maintenance of the power plants.

Forty-two years ago, the power board had reduced its expenditure for procurement of spares by 300 per cent by adopting tender process instead of direct procurement from the mother companies which manufacture power plant components, he said.
Usually, the spares manufactured by the mother companies cost much more than those made by other reputed companies of Europe and America.

A complaint over the matter has been submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office, Anti-Corruption Commission, power and energy ministry and the PDB chairman.Admitting the power board’s plan to procure the spares under direct procurement method instead of floating international tenders, PDB member generation Tamal Chakrabarti told New Age that the firms that usually participated in such tenders might feel aggrieved and raise allegation.

He, however, said that the power board had not yet finalised the plan. When asked why the power board was planning to go for direct procurement after buying the spares through tender process for the last 42 years, Tamal said that the capacity of the power plants of the PDB had been increased. Besides, the authorities were concerned about the quality of the spares of the power plants.

That is why the authorities have planned to buy the spares from the mother companies like General Electric which would cost more than what other companies manufacture, he said.The power board is planning to procure the spares for different plants under separate projects so that it could avoid seeking approval from the power ministry or the cabinet committee on government purchase, officials said.

According to the public procurement rule 2008, the power board would have to get approval of the power ministry if a single project cost goes up above Tk 20 million and the cabinet committee on government purchase if the project cost exceeds Tk 490 million.

[Note: already looted]
In a recent move, the power board, without a tender, bought capital machinery for Tk 580 million for repairing generators and rewinding power plants for the first time in its history, causing a loss of Tk 520 million as it could have purchased the capital machinery at about Tk 60 million through tender process.

[Note: Blatant excuse for looting]
When asked, Tamal claimed that the power board was in need of specific parts which were usually manufactured by the mother companies. A tender process is redundant in the procurement of such capital machinery, he added.

New Age | Newspaper

 

[scholseys]

Toufiq Elahi is so corrupt that even Bal ministers call him corrupt, her older daughter's wedding took place last year and anybody who is someoje was invited there, i saw joy and his wife there. His younger daughter daughter studies business at mit and travels a lot in business class all around the world. He is also moudud's shala and mrs. Elahi is one of the best of the best cook i have ever tasted, each time i am in dhaka she sends me food, i love that lady. Too bad when bnp comes take bash mara hobe, even though mr. Elahi is a nice chap and i have personally seen him do a lot for the poor.

 

[idune]

PDB has no right to waste public money

THE Power Development Board’s plan to buy spares for gas turbines at its plants without tender is reminiscent of the way that the Awami League-led government went about commissioning rental and quick rental plants in the private sector to generate electricity for the national grid.

A PDB official was quoted in a report front-paged in New Age on Wednesday as claiming that the board had kept the procurement of spares suspended for more than one year so as to necessitate direct procurement from the mother companies in the name of quick repair and maintenance of the power plants. As the spares manufactured by mother companies cost more than those made by reputed companies in Europe and America, the PDB plan means that it would have to spend Tk 800 crore; the expenditure could have been a lot less had it gone through the tender process. The board has already broken from a 42-year tradition of procurement through international tender when it bought capital machinery for repairing generators and rewinding power plants at a cost of Tk 580 million, which would have cost it only Tk 60 million had it gone through the international tender process.
In line with the public procurement rule 2008, the power board is to get approval of the power ministry in case a project undertaken by it involves a cost of more than Tk 20 million, while it is bound to get nod of the cabinet committee on government purchase if the project cost exceeds Tk 490 million. On the other hand, the Speedy Supply of Power and Energy (Special Provision) Act, 2010 has exempted the authorities under the power and energy ministry from these bindings. Worse still, the law also restricts any attempt to bring charges against the officials involved in any project taken under the act.

It is also important to recall that the government applied almost the same tactics in question in its bid to enact the much-debated law as it came into being with the incumbents passing one and a half year after they took office by giving a lip service to the solution to the power crisis nagging over years just to aggravate the problem further. Additionally, the law paved the way for setting up unsolicited quick rental power plants mostly owned by the people loyal to the ruling party which have already not only caused consumers at large to bear exorbitant power tariff but also put the economy in jeopardy.

Be that as it may, the government needs to immediately take effective steps to make the power board rethink its plan and prevent any further waste of public money.

New Age | Newspaper

 

[idune]

Govt drags feet on Destiny decision

Shakhawat Hossain

The government seems to have backtracked on its hard-line approach as it has opted to follow an ‘accommodative’ policy towards the multilevel marketing company Destiny 2000 Limited, officials said.

The officials referring to an inter-ministerial meeting held at the commerce ministry on Thursday said that it had ended without any decisions being made on the recovery of the money Destiny 2000 and its subsidiaries are reported to have smuggled out of the country.

An investigation committee of the ministry earlier found that Tk 38,00 crore the group amassed through an illegal banking system and a fake tree-planting project was untraced.

It suspected that the group’s executives might have smuggled out the money through hundi. The committee suggested action for the recovery of the money.The review meeting, the commerce secretary Mahbub Ahmed presided over, did not discuss the appointment of administrators to Destiny companies aimed at recovering the money.

The Transparency International, Bangladesh executive director, Iftekharuzzaman, told New Age that he was surprised as the fund recovery efforts had slowed down because of the ‘inefficiency and the lack of commitment of the government.’ He said that the government could easily revive its image, tarnished because of a series of financial scams, by recovering the fund before the elections early 2014.

The government earlier decided to change the companies act to appoint administrators to look after assets and activities of Destiny and more than a dozen of its entitiesBut it later dropped the plan in the face of resistance from businessmen. It then decided to appoint administrators without amending the act. Representatives from the finance ministry, Bangladesh Bank, Local Government and Cooperatives Division and National Board of Revenue attended the review meeting that turned into ‘a mere bureaucratic exercise.’

The meeting viewed that no additional measures were needed as the Anti-Corruption Commission had filed a case against the group’s officials for laundering Tk 3,285 crore, officials said.The commission is investigating the money laundering issue after filing the case against 22 executives of the group, including the group president Harun-ur Rashid, the managing director Rafiqul Amin and the chairman Mohammad Hossain.

Harun-ur Rashid was remanded on bail and others were remanded in custody for interrogation. Commission officials hoped that they could file the charge sheet in the next in January.They also said that they were not capable of recovering the fund that has been smuggled out.They said that the commission would need government agencies such as the finance ministry and the Bangladesh Bank to also act to recover the fund.

The commission’s inquiry found that Destiny executives had embezzled Tk 2,106.64 crore under Destiny Tree Plantation Limited and misappropriated Tk Tk 1,178.61 crore in the name of Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited. According to the commission findings, 11 top official of Destiny 2000 had illegally misappropriated the money from bank accounts.
The findings showed that

Harun-ur-Rashid [Awami League appointed ex army chief] had withdrawn Tk 1,397.96 lakh,
Rafiqul Amin and his wife Farah Deeba jointly Tk 7,327.33 lakh,
Mohammad Hossain Tk 189.84 lakh,
Md Gofranul Haque Tk 8,304.6 lakh,
Mohammad Saidur Rahman Tk 16,744.35 lakh,
Mohammad Mezbah Uddin Tk 7,420.93 lakh,
Tayebur Rahman and Salina Rahman Tk 3,077.26 lakh,
Syed Sajjad Hossain Tk 1,613.06 lakh,
Irfan Ahmed Sani Tk 70.673 lakh,
Jomshed Ara Chowdhury Tk 1,821.31 lakh,
Nepal Chandra Biswas and Mitu Rani Biswas Tk 3,368.403 lakh.

New Age | Newspaper

 

[idune]

Govt drags feet on Destiny decision

Shakhawat Hossain

The government seems to have backtracked on its hard-line approach as it has opted to follow an ‘accommodative’ policy towards the multilevel marketing company Destiny 2000 Limited, officials said.

The officials referring to an inter-ministerial meeting held at the commerce ministry on Thursday said that it had ended without any decisions being made on the recovery of the money Destiny 2000 and its subsidiaries are reported to have smuggled out of the country.

An investigation committee of the ministry earlier found that Tk 38,00 crore the group amassed through an illegal banking system and a fake tree-planting project was untraced.

It suspected that the group’s executives might have smuggled out the money through hundi. The committee suggested action for the recovery of the money.The review meeting, the commerce secretary Mahbub Ahmed presided over, did not discuss the appointment of administrators to Destiny companies aimed at recovering the money.

The Transparency International, Bangladesh executive director, Iftekharuzzaman, told New Age that he was surprised as the fund recovery efforts had slowed down because of the ‘inefficiency and the lack of commitment of the government.’ He said that the government could easily revive its image, tarnished because of a series of financial scams, by recovering the fund before the elections early 2014.

The government earlier decided to change the companies act to appoint administrators to look after assets and activities of Destiny and more than a dozen of its entitiesBut it later dropped the plan in the face of resistance from businessmen. It then decided to appoint administrators without amending the act. Representatives from the finance ministry, Bangladesh Bank, Local Government and Cooperatives Division and National Board of Revenue attended the review meeting that turned into ‘a mere bureaucratic exercise.’

The meeting viewed that no additional measures were needed as the Anti-Corruption Commission had filed a case against the group’s officials for laundering Tk 3,285 crore, officials said.The commission is investigating the money laundering issue after filing the case against 22 executives of the group, including the group president Harun-ur Rashid, the managing director Rafiqul Amin and the chairman Mohammad Hossain.

Harun-ur Rashid was remanded on bail and others were remanded in custody for interrogation. Commission officials hoped that they could file the charge sheet in the next in January.They also said that they were not capable of recovering the fund that has been smuggled out.They said that the commission would need government agencies such as the finance ministry and the Bangladesh Bank to also act to recover the fund.

The commission’s inquiry found that Destiny executives had embezzled Tk 2,106.64 crore under Destiny Tree Plantation Limited and misappropriated Tk Tk 1,178.61 crore in the name of Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited. According to the commission findings, 11 top official of Destiny 2000 had illegally misappropriated the money from bank accounts.
The findings showed that

Harun-ur-Rashid [Awami League appointed ex army chief] had withdrawn Tk 1,397.96 lakh,
Rafiqul Amin and his wife Farah Deeba jointly Tk 7,327.33 lakh,
Mohammad Hossain Tk 189.84 lakh,
Md Gofranul Haque Tk 8,304.6 lakh,
Mohammad Saidur Rahman Tk 16,744.35 lakh,
Mohammad Mezbah Uddin Tk 7,420.93 lakh,
Tayebur Rahman and Salina Rahman Tk 3,077.26 lakh,
Syed Sajjad Hossain Tk 1,613.06 lakh,
Irfan Ahmed Sani Tk 70.673 lakh,
Jomshed Ara Chowdhury Tk 1,821.31 lakh,
Nepal Chandra Biswas and Mitu Rani Biswas Tk 3,368.403 lakh.

New Age | Newspaper