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Tough action against the corrupt

Health officials accused of graft removed, ACC launches probe into N95 scam


Published : 05 Jun 2020 10:31 PM | Updated : 07 Sep 2020 06:42 AM

The government has started taking punitive actions against those who have been found to be corrupt involving the purchases of various materials for the health sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of the punitive measures, the health ministry has already taken some departmental steps following the report of its committee formed on April 21.

On Thursday, Health Services Division secretary Md Ashadul Islam has been transferred to the Planning Division as secretary. Earlier on May 22, the government appointed Abu Hena Morshed Zaman as the new director of Central Medical Stores Depot under the Directorate General of Health Services, responsible for the procurement of the masks.

Morshed Zaman, who worked as the Deputy Secretary General (additional secretary) of the Bangladesh National Commission for Unesco, replaced outgoing CMSD director brigadier general Mohammad Shahid Ullah.

The government has formed a probe committee amid a series of criticisms as physician leaders and experts concerned said that the matter warranted a thorough investigation. They were surprised at the indifference and wondered how the products, produced in and marketed from the USA, inside packets were changed by a Bangladeshi company.

They argued that the packets with N95 label were obviously printed in Bangladesh and suspected an ill motive behind it.
Meanwhile, the company that supplied the masks, the JMI group, said by way of an explanation that it was a mistake they had made during the packaging.

After the COVID-19 was detected in Bangladesh, the CMSD supplied to government hospitals personal protective equipment that included packets of masks labelled as N95 masks. But upon opening the packets government physicians found ordinary face masks in them. The CMSD and JMI in separate newspaper advertisements explained that ordinary face masks were wrongly put in N95 packets and it was a packaging mistake.

The CMSD in its newspaper advertisement said that reports of a collaborative scam between the health minister, his son, the health secretary and the Health Services director general behind the supply of the fake N95 masks were baseless and politically motivated.

JMI in newspaper advertisements explained that it supplied 20,600 masks mistakenly placed in N95 packets.
On March 30, Mugda Medical College Hospital received 300 pieces of fake N95 masks from the CMSD. On April 1, the hospital decided to write to two government offices to confirm their quality.

One of the offices, the IEDCR, replied that it was not the right authority to pass an opinion on the item while the health services never made a reply.

Khulna Medical College Hospital and Kushtia General Hospital also raised questions over the fake N95 masks.
Many physicians, including the then Mugda Medical College Hospital director, were transferred allegedly for raising questions about the quality of the masks.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has also launched a separate move to unearth the routes behind the corruptions in the health sector. The ACC on Thursday sent a letter to the health ministry asking for the probe findings into the allegations that low-quality products were passed as N95 masks to some government hospitals by a local company.

ACC Chairman Iqbal Mahmood said, “A letter has already been sent to the health ministry as the ACC wants to know what they have found about the alleged irregularities.”

“Actions will be taken after receiving the health ministry report,” said the ACC chief and continued as saying that the commission wanted to redouble its efforts to curb corruption in the health sector as the COVID-19 gave them a chance to ensure freeing the health sector from corruption.

Iqbal said that the commission would assign officers or form a team to inquire the matter after getting the report from the ministry.

About the ACC’s move, health ministry additional secretary Habibur Rahman Khan said that the ministry would cooperate with the commission in this regard.