A number of former BTCL officials accused of embezzling Tk6.07bn through illegal VoIP business have left the country before the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) approved filing cases against them.
ACC officials said some of the heavyweights lobbied for the delay in the ACC investigation and approval, which gave accused officials of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) enough time to prepare for fleeing. At least two out of the 23 accused have already flown abroad.
Another accused former official of BTCL is now getting ready to fly to USA selling most his properties, an ACC official, who was involved with the graft probe, told the Dhaka Tribune.
On Thursday, ACC filed four cases against 23 persons, including the incumbent managing director (MD) of BTCL, SOM Kalim Ullah and four former MDs in connection with embezzling over Tk6bn through illegal Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business.
Among the accused, BTCL’s former divisional engineer Habibur Rahman Pramanik flew to Malaysia while former divisional engineer Ronel Chakma went to Canada, confirmed the ACC official.
The official said: “Former member (maintenance and operation) Mohammad Tawfiq is selling his assets in Dhaka and trying to go to America.”
It took a long time to complete investigations and for approval from the commission to file the cases, which allowed the accused BTCL officials to leave the country and avoid facing the charges, said ACC officials.
An ACC inquiry team took almost a year and a half to complete the investigation. It filed primary probe report in February suggesting filing cases against the accused. Then in June, the probe team submitted another report after further investigation and said 23 were involved with the scam.
The commission then took two more months and gave its approval on August 25 for filing cases against the 23 accused, including officials of BTCL and Ericsson Bangladesh Ltd.
“The primary probe recommended filing cases against some officials of BTCL. If the recommendations were implemented without delay the corrupt BTCL officials could have been prevented from fleeing the country,” said an ACC official.
Since the probe found high-officials of BTCL were involved in the call detail record manipulation, the officials had lobbied the ACC not to file the cases against them to buy them enough time to escape, said the ACC official.
“The accused will not return to the country. If the approval of filing cases came earlier, they could have been arrested,” he said.
Regarding the delay, the ACC’s Chairman M Bodiuzzaman told the Dhaka Tribune Wednesday that commission had conducted the inquiry in “its own way and investigating a corruption or irregularity takes time.”
“It was not an ordinary case,” the chairman said.
“... the court will conduct inquiry; and there will be more investigation. It could find new names or some names might be even excluded from the charges.”
When asked about those who had already fled the country he said: “... charge sheet will be issued against them; they cannot avoid charges.”
A group of BTCL officials colluded with officials of the multinational company Ericsson Bangladesh Ltd to embezzle money by erasing incoming international call minutes from call detail record of ITX-5 and ITX-7 at the capital’s Mohakhali.
According to reports, the number of international incoming calls per day has declined by 15m from the 45m recorded in early 2010. The decline is said to be causing daily revenue losses worth Tk100m.