The laundered money of Khaleda Zia’s son Arafat Rahman Koko recovered by the Anti-Corruption Commission was transferred to the finance ministry account in violation of the commitment given to the court of Singapore, ACC officials said.
The Singaporean court gave the money to the ACC on condition that it would spend it on strengthening its anti-graft activities.
The court also told the ACC to inform it on how the anti-graft body was disbursing the money, officials related to the process said.
The ACC transferred the money to the finance ministry keeping Attorney General Mahbubey Alam in dark although the AG, on behalf of the state, gave the assurance to the Singapore authorities that the money would be used for anti-graft activities.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told the Dhaka Tribune that the ACC had not informed him while transferring the money to the finance ministry.
“I have not been informed that the finance ministry had taken the money. We have promised to another state while bringing back the money that it would be used for anti-graft activities.”
“It would have been wise if the money had been kept with the ACC,” he said.
The money belongs to the anti-graft body but the finance ministry has taken the money stalling the anti-graft body’s three yearlong plan to strengthen its anti-corruption drive, ACC Chairman M Bodiuzzaman noted.
It has been over six months the ACC received the money. The commission’s plan to boost up its anti-graft drive with the money has been marred as the ministry is yet to return the money, he said.
“When we received the money equivalent to Tk21 crore from the Singaporean government the finance ministry asked us to deposit the money in the ministry account and sought a guideline on how to use the money.”
Following the instruction of the ministry we transferred the money to the finance ministry and submitted a three yearlong plan, the chairman said.
“Unfortunately the ministry has given us back only a meagre amount of money of Tk2.5 crore and told us that the rest of them would be given later,” Bodiuzzaman said.
Of the Tk2.5 crore, the commission gave Tk2.10 crore to Prime Minister’s Special Assistant Ferdous Ahmed Khan as 10% commission of Tk21 crore for his contribution to bringing back the laundered money.
Ferdous earlier applied for a 30% commission but after negotiation the commission gave him 10% of the total money as his firm Octokhan helped recover the money, the chairman said.
ACC officials said many of their anti-graft works had to be stalled due to finance ministry’s unwanted intervention.
Admitting the fact, ACC chairman said: “It is not a budgetary allocation rather the money belongs only to the ACC. Today or tomorrow, the finance ministry has to give the money back.”
The ACC has recovered a total of Tk21 crore, the entire amount of the money laundered to Singapore by BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s son Arafat Rahman Koko.
This was the first money laundering case in which Bangladesh government was able to recover money from abroad.
Through mutual legal assistance request, the ACC on November 22, 2012 received Tk13.44 crore and Tk7.40 crore in August last year from the Koko’s bank account in Singapore. It has also received Tk15.48 lakh as interest for the laundered money in January last year.
The money was deposited in the Stolen Asset Recovery Account with Ramna Corporate Branch of Sonali Bank.
The commission filed a case against Arafat Rahman Koko on March 17, 2009 on charge of money laundering which he had illegally obtained from a German company Siemens and other sources in exchange for helping them get government contracts.
Arafat had a deal with China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd in a Tk3.51bn contract for construction of the New Mooring Container Terminal and with Siemens in a Tk2.39bn contract for the supply and installation of equipment for the state-run mobile operator Teletalk.
A few other people also gave money to Arafat that was deposited in two of his five bank accounts in Singapore detected by the commission. Four of the accounts are with United Overseas Bank and the fifth with the CIC Bank.
The three-year plan made by ACC includes enhance its logistics including walkie-talkies, computers, mobile tracking devices, hidden camera’s etc to build strong cases against corrupt officials as many accused persons are granted bail by courts due to lack of evidence against them.
Officials said they need prison van, ambulance, a prison cell, sufficient interrogation room, modern computers, arms, a training academy etc to make the anti-graft body more effective, but all the plans was failed due to lack of budgetary allocation.
“Now, we have the money, but cannot start the anti-graft programme effectively since our money was taken by the government unlawfully,” a high official added.