3.6 lakh tonnes of hard rock 'missing'

Hard rock produced at the Maddhapara Granite Mining Company Ltd with a market value of around Tk 55.24 crore has apparently gone missing.

This came to the fore just weeks after another concern of the state-owned Petrobangla, Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Ltd (BCMCL), could not say where 1.45 lakh tonnes of coal it had produced over the years went.

Stock at the MGMCL shows that about 3.60 lakh tonnes of hard rock is not there and the officials are claiming that this was due to years of system loss, poor record keeping, hard rock sinking into the ground, and the produced rock not being handed over to the company.

They say that the mine produced 42.36 lakh tonnes of granite between July this year and its development in 2005. It produced 4.44 lakh tonnes during mine development and trials and went into commercial production in 2006. It sold off the lion share of most of the rocks but it only has 1.45 lakh tonnes in stock when it should have had a little less than five lakh tonnes.

An official letter of the company claims that a staggering 1.06 lakh tonnes of hard rock had either gone down under the clay or got mixed with soil at the company yard over the last 12 years.

Officials said Korean company Namnam developed the mine in Parbatipur upazila of Dinajpur and started production under contract with MGMCL.

During its stint at the mine, until 2013, Namnam commercially produced around 15.35 lakh tonnes, according to documents obtained by this paper. However, the Korean company handed over around 13.08 lakh tonnes to MGMCL.

The officials at the mine are now saying that this discrepancy, a deficit of 2.27 lakh tonnes of rock which is around 14.79 percent of its total production until 2013, was due to weighing error and system loss and that it had not been corrected over the years.

Interestingly, in 2012-2013, Nanman produced 2.81 lakh tonnes and delivered the same to MGMCL, according to documents.

In September of 2013, Belarus-based Germania Trest Consortium (GTC) signed a six-year deal with MGMCL for the mine's production, management and maintenance, replacing Namnam.

It produced around 12.73 lakh tonnes of rock until 2016-17. In a letter sent to the Board of Directors of MGMCL by the mine officials, it was mentioned that they suffered 2.05 percent system loss during GTC's handling of the mine, which is about 26,000 tonnes.

Officials say that around 56,518 tonnes more was produced and sold in 2016-17 but there were no records.

In 2017-18, the mine produced 7.69 lakh tonnes.

Failing to find where the 3.60 lakh tonnes of rock went, a five-member committee was formed on March 14 to investigate.

Led by Abu Taleb Farazi, general manager (Marketing) of MGMCL, the probe body found the deficit along with possible causes for it. It submitted its report to Managing Director SM Nurul Aurangjeb on July 2.

The Daily Star contacted Aurangjeb, who is on leave for hajj. He said he had not been working at the mine for too long. He had joined in February this year and following the signs of shortage formed the five-member probe body in March. He said he had received the report and was aware of the stock shortage.

After coal going missing from the BCMCL came to light on July 16 creating nationwide outrage, Petrobangla on July 26 formed a four-member body led by Zabed Chowdhury, a director of Petrobangla and acting managing director of MGMCL, to assess the loss of hard rock.

Zabed said he had been unaware of the shortage as he had joined a few weeks ago and that the probe was on.

The MGMCL authorities raised the missing-rock issue before its seven-member Board of Directors on July 29 attaching the probe report of the five-member committee. They requested adjustment of the discrepancy and rock prices.

They claimed that measurement error, system loss, rock mixing with soil, absence of weighting scales at crushing and sorting plant, unwanted materials in produced rocks, washing away by rainwater, dust, mud and handling losses over the years caused the shortage.

Abul Taleb Farazi, general manager (marketing) of MGMCL, said they had been raising the issue before the board since 2013.