Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Wednesday said they have tried to refute the allegations of corruption conspiracy in the Padma Bridge project levelled in a one-and-half-page write-up by the World Bank’s external panel.
“We sent the reply today (Wednesday) to the World Bank authorities,” the minister told reporters at his secretariat office.
“I hope my observation about the external panel report will be published on the World Bank website.”
The minister said he plans to make a statement in parliament on the World Bank panel’s report submitted to the government last week and the government’s response to it if the prime minister allows him to do so.
The report of the three-member panel of experts, headed by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, on its findings of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) investigation of the Padma Bridge conspiracy case appeared on Tuesday on the lender’s website.
In its final report, the panel stopped short of making a final assessment of the ACC probe until it was completed, but observed that there was no legal reason to take off the name of former communications minister Syed Abul Hossain from the initial list of people under investigation for “criminal conspiracy” in the country’s largest infrastructure project.
In an instant reaction, the ACC chairman Ghulam Rahman defended their actions, saying the commission cannot accuse the former communications minister just because the World Bank’s external panel suggested it in their report.
“Evidence and witnesses must be available to accuse a person,” he said.
Johannes Zutt, the new World Bank country director handed over the panel’s final report to the finance minister on June 11.
