Saturday, September 10, 2011
Wikileaks
Corruption unabated
Ex-US envoy's remarks on BNP-led govt in 2006
The BNP-led government was engaged in an apparently unprecedented level of corruption towards the end of its tenure, said a US diplomatic cable leaked recently.
“Greed and the need to finance upcoming political campaigns are driving the upswing,” read the cable US ambassador Patricia Butenis sent to Washington on August 24, 2006, nearly two months before the end of the five-year tenure of the BNP-led government.
Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks published the cable titled “Last call! Corruption at the end of the BNP government” on August 30.
The widely-held belief that family members of the then prime minister and other senior ministers were engaged in systemic corruption with impunity had further “fuelled petty corruption at all levels, as lower officials saw little risk to getting theirs,” said the cable.
The dispatch cited several instances focusing on corruption during the tenure of the BNP-led four-party alliance government.
It said the revival of a proposed $223 million tender award the previous week for machine readable passports, visas and national identity cards was perhaps the largest -- but by no means the only -- questionable procurement to be rushed through in the dying days of the BNP-led government.
"On August 21, the Cabinet Purchase Committee considered another 19 projects worth $122 million, approving all but two despite allegations of serious irregularities involving all the projects," it said. The committee on July 17, 2006 had rejected the home ministry's proposal for giving the contract to German bidder Giesecke and Devrient Gmbd.
The committee was especially critical of the identity card component, which it said had not been authorised by the Prime Minister's Office.
The purchase committee also criticised the home ministry for failing to prepare the legal and institutional framework for a national identity card programme, for not using international experts to evaluate the tender submissions, and for entrusting such a large undertaking to a single contractor.
It sent back the project to the home ministry with instructions to re-tender a revised project for the machine readable passports and visa only. In early August that year, the ministry reportedly instructed officials to prepare a new tender.
The project was revived on instructions from the PMO, according to reports. On August 15, the then state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar confirmed in an interview with The Daily Star that the Cabinet Division had instructed him to resubmit the project to the purchase committee.
The dispatch said the project was not considered at the committee meeting on August 21, but was expected to be considered at its next meeting.
Other questionable procurements that were under consideration or approved included telecom, sanitation and transportation infrastructure projects, a dozen land deals, retroactive payments for unsolicited maintenance services at government power plants, and several power sector proposals, the cable said.
“These join recent allegations of government support for syndicates involved in price manipulation of basic commodities, including rice and sugar, anecdotal reports of an increase in the value of bribes paid to police, magistrates and other government officials throughout the bureaucracy, and a breaking scandal involving false beneficial owner stock accounts opened to evade rules governing subscriptions to initial public offerings.”
Butenis wrote it was widely believed that the prime minister's two sons, as well as relatives of other senior ministers, were directly involved in promoting such questionable deals in exchange for significant "commissions".
In at least two tenders for police radio equipment, an apparent victory by US bidder Motorola was overturned following a direct intervention from Tarique Rahman to Babar on behalf of Tarique's brother Arafat Rahman Koko, who was working on behalf of Singapore Technologies, according to the cable.
Singapore Technologies would also have a significant role in the project on machine readable passports and national identity cards, according to embassy sources, the dispatch said.
“The present level of grand corruption was unprecedented and significantly greater than corruption at the end of the previous Awami League government,” Iftekhar Zaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), told an US embassy officer on August 23, 2006.
Butenis cited that BNP cancelled many contracts issued in the waning days of the previous government -- officially because of corruption concerns though often for political reasons.
“If elected, Awami League will probably take similar action against late-term BNP deals, both to demonstrate its own anti-corruption credentials and to create fresh opportunities to garner "commissions" from re-tendered contracts,” the cable read.
“For this reason, the BNP's inability to close last-minute deals in the power and energy sectors may be the one silver-lining in the otherwise dark cloud of corruption hanging over the BNP's final months in office.”
“Greed and the need to finance upcoming political campaigns are driving the upswing,” read the cable US ambassador Patricia Butenis sent to Washington on August 24, 2006, nearly two months before the end of the five-year tenure of the BNP-led government.
Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks published the cable titled “Last call! Corruption at the end of the BNP government” on August 30.
The widely-held belief that family members of the then prime minister and other senior ministers were engaged in systemic corruption with impunity had further “fuelled petty corruption at all levels, as lower officials saw little risk to getting theirs,” said the cable.
The dispatch cited several instances focusing on corruption during the tenure of the BNP-led four-party alliance government.
It said the revival of a proposed $223 million tender award the previous week for machine readable passports, visas and national identity cards was perhaps the largest -- but by no means the only -- questionable procurement to be rushed through in the dying days of the BNP-led government.
"On August 21, the Cabinet Purchase Committee considered another 19 projects worth $122 million, approving all but two despite allegations of serious irregularities involving all the projects," it said. The committee on July 17, 2006 had rejected the home ministry's proposal for giving the contract to German bidder Giesecke and Devrient Gmbd.
The committee was especially critical of the identity card component, which it said had not been authorised by the Prime Minister's Office.
The purchase committee also criticised the home ministry for failing to prepare the legal and institutional framework for a national identity card programme, for not using international experts to evaluate the tender submissions, and for entrusting such a large undertaking to a single contractor.
It sent back the project to the home ministry with instructions to re-tender a revised project for the machine readable passports and visa only. In early August that year, the ministry reportedly instructed officials to prepare a new tender.
The project was revived on instructions from the PMO, according to reports. On August 15, the then state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar confirmed in an interview with The Daily Star that the Cabinet Division had instructed him to resubmit the project to the purchase committee.
The dispatch said the project was not considered at the committee meeting on August 21, but was expected to be considered at its next meeting.
Other questionable procurements that were under consideration or approved included telecom, sanitation and transportation infrastructure projects, a dozen land deals, retroactive payments for unsolicited maintenance services at government power plants, and several power sector proposals, the cable said.
“These join recent allegations of government support for syndicates involved in price manipulation of basic commodities, including rice and sugar, anecdotal reports of an increase in the value of bribes paid to police, magistrates and other government officials throughout the bureaucracy, and a breaking scandal involving false beneficial owner stock accounts opened to evade rules governing subscriptions to initial public offerings.”
Butenis wrote it was widely believed that the prime minister's two sons, as well as relatives of other senior ministers, were directly involved in promoting such questionable deals in exchange for significant "commissions".
In at least two tenders for police radio equipment, an apparent victory by US bidder Motorola was overturned following a direct intervention from Tarique Rahman to Babar on behalf of Tarique's brother Arafat Rahman Koko, who was working on behalf of Singapore Technologies, according to the cable.
Singapore Technologies would also have a significant role in the project on machine readable passports and national identity cards, according to embassy sources, the dispatch said.
“The present level of grand corruption was unprecedented and significantly greater than corruption at the end of the previous Awami League government,” Iftekhar Zaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), told an US embassy officer on August 23, 2006.
Butenis cited that BNP cancelled many contracts issued in the waning days of the previous government -- officially because of corruption concerns though often for political reasons.
“If elected, Awami League will probably take similar action against late-term BNP deals, both to demonstrate its own anti-corruption credentials and to create fresh opportunities to garner "commissions" from re-tendered contracts,” the cable read.
“For this reason, the BNP's inability to close last-minute deals in the power and energy sectors may be the one silver-lining in the otherwise dark cloud of corruption hanging over the BNP's final months in office.”
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