An intelligence agency made recommendations to the government to verify information before appointing a project director (PD) of any government project.
The recommendation was made while investigation into allegations of massive corruption attempt was going on in the much-talked-about ‘10 new government high establishment high schools in surrounding areas of Dhaka city and adjacent districts’ project.
The intelligence agency started the probe after Bangladesh Post had carried eight-part series reports focusing the massive corruption attempts allegedly by Dr Md Amirul, project director, and his associates.
Sources said the recommendations were sent to the top brass of the government for taking action.
The intelligence agency in its report said personal information, honesty, character and family background should be checked through the government intelligence agency before assigning any one as a PD.
Government should also instruct intelligence agencies to provide update information about the status of the implementation of the projects from time to time to the high level of the government.
High powered committees should be formed to take stern action against any person involved in any kind of misappropriation in the government projects.
The price of around twenty small trees was estimated at Tk 60 crore and Tk 6 crore was valued for a few old CI sheets in the much-talked 10-school project of the Education Ministry. More than Tk 358 crore was proposed as the estimated cost for acquiring just two acres of land for a single high school.
The Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education under the Secondary and Higher Education Division of the Ministry of Education was implementing the Tk 673 crore project from July 2017.
Even though less than one percent of the project work has so far been completed, the PD along with his corrupt syndicate officials had allegedly become desperate to inflate the cost of the project to Tk 1,124 crore, sources said.
In the Development Project Proposal (DPP), the total cost of the project is Tk 673.46 crore. But in order to embezzle major chunk of funds of the project, a corrupt syndicate was desperately trying to send Revised Development Project Proposal (RDPP) to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) seeking allocation of Tk 1,124 crore. Project insiders alleged that most of the corruption is believed to occurr in the land acquisition process. In the DPP, Tk 400 crore was allocated for 20 acres of land acquisition for ten new high school grounds. But in the RDPP, around Tk 750.50 crore was proposed for the same amount of land for the same numbers of schools. The proposed estimation for acquisition of 12 acres of land was around Tk 604.50 crore. The proposed cost was signed by the then Land Acquisition Officer of Dhaka District, Jooti Prue.
A signed copy of the probable estimate was also obtained by Bangladesh Post. This probable estimate was prepared at the request of the then new high school establishment project in a bid to raise the land acquisition prices to Tk 750.50 crore in the RDPP, sources said. When contacted, Jooti Prue admitted that he had signed the estimate copy of the documents when he was serving in that position. When contacted earlier, PD of the project, Dr Md Amirul Islam had said, “The estimated prices were prepared by the DC office. I am not involved in the issues.”
But on August 18, he told this correspondent that project steering committee on March this year decided to get the proposed land at real prices.
Responding to another question, he said, “I was interrogated by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Police and probe committee of the Education Ministry.”
However, he is still working as the project director of the project.
Dr Md Amirul Islam is the Project Director (PD) of the 10 new government high establishment high schools in surrounding areas of Dhaka city and adjacent districts.
