A two-member Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) team is scheduled to fly to Canada on Sunday to collect information on corruption over the appointment of a supervising consultant for the Padma bridge project and quiz senior officials of SNC-Lavalin.
ACC legal adviser Anisul Haque and investigation officer Mirja Jahidul Alam will take a flight to Canada today and return May 23, according to sources.
The committee will work in cooperation with the Royal Mounted Police of Canada and interrogate SNC-Lavalin’s former vice-president Kevin Wallace, former vice-president (international project) Ramesh Shaha, and former director (international project) Mohammad Ismail.
The latter two are facing trial in a Toronto court for attempting bribery to get the consultant’s job in the billion-dollar project. A preliminary hearing was held last month and the next would be held on May 29.
The ACC team had originally planned to attend the last month’s hearing in Toronto, but they couldn’t do so because the embassy did issue the visas in time.
During their visit, the team will also attempt to collect a copy of the diary of Ramesh Shaha, which is believed to hold valuable information, including the names of those receiving payoffs from the Canadian engineering firm, ACC officials said.
After verifying the list, they will submit a charge-sheet on this.
It has been learnt that the diary contains a list of 10-12% commission receivers for the Padma bridge project. In a manner that is quite revealing, it says: “Padma PCC, 4% Min, 2% Kaiser, 2% Nixon, 1% Secretary and 1% Moshi Rahman.”
According to the document, “Min” refers to former communication minister Syed Abul Hossain, “Kaiser” refers to former state minister for foreign affairs Abul Hasan Chowdhury and “Nixon” to the prime minister’s nephew Mujibur Rahman. “Secretary” is former Bridges Division secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan while “Moshi Rahman” is the prime minister’s economic affairs advisor Mashiur Rahman.
A 2% commission was set aside for someone whose name was not mentioned.
The ACC investigation team has reportedly done the Bangladeshi part of the investigation and is awaiting for the Canadian documents to do the rest.
On April 3, the ACC investigation team submitted a preliminary report on the corruption allegations over appointing a consultant to supervise construction of the bridge. The full report will be submitted as soon as the team returns, said ACC officials.
On December 17, 2012, ACC filed a case of “conspiracy for corruption in the Padma bridge project” against seven people, including former secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, Bangladesh Bridge Authority Superintendent Engineer Kazi Mohammad Ferdous, Roads and Highways Executive Engineer Riaz Ahmad Jaber, Engineering Planners Consultant Ltd’s Deputy Managing Director Mohammad Mostafa, director of international projects at SNC-Lavalin Mohammed Ismail, and the firm’s former vice-presidents Ramesh Saha and Kevin Wallace.
Among them, Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and Kazi Mohammad Ferdous are now out on bail, while Riaz Ahmad Jaber is in jail.
Names of the two former ministers – Syed Abul Hossain and Abul Hasan Chowdhury – were dropped from the list of the accused. But the ACC said they would be kept under observation and that their names could be added later if their involvement can be proved.
On June 29, 2011, the World Bank cancelled a pledged credit of $1.2bn for the construction of the 6.15km Padma bridge, after its inquiry team had found “credible evidence of corruption” by high-level government functionaries in awarding the contract for project supervision to SNC-Lavalin.
The total project cost was estimated to be $2.9bn.
