IRIS Corp DMD held in Malaysia on graft charge
Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has arrested IRIS Corporation Berhad deputy managing director, Datuk Hamdan Mohd Hassan, for his alleged involvement in corruption in an e-passport project of the Republic of Guinea.
The Malaysian company, which has been running the machine readable passport (MRP) project in Bangladesh too, announced yesterday that Hamdan was arrested on Thursday for his alleged abuse of power and involvement in corrupt practices.
A Malaysian court remanded him for six days for carrying out probe against the allegations, said Malaysian newspaper The Star.
“Pending the finalisation of the investigations, IRIS wishes to announce that Hamdan's executive powers are suspended and his present duties and responsibilities as acting CEO of IRIS will be taken over by the current chief operating officer, Choong Choo Hock,” IRIS mentioned in its announcement.
The Malaysian company drew criticism from home and abroad mainly because of its two senior officials, including Hamdan. The other official is IRIS international Sales Manager Bahjat Aman, who was fired for alleged corruption and irregularities in operating functions in different countries including Bangladesh.
Bangladesh government awarded the company a project for issuing MRP in 2010. The project ran smoothly at the initial stage but allegations of irregularities and mismanagement surfaced due to Hamdan and Aman.
Amid these allegations, the government in 2014 appointed IRIS as an outsourcing company for issuing MRP to about 70 lakh Bangladeshi expatriates in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It not only failed to do the job but got involved in widespread irregularities and corruption.
Though the contract ended last year, thousands of Bangladeshis in those countries are yet to get their MRPs.
IRIS even did not transfer data of many Bangladeshis to the Agargaon passport office, and deposit all the money it took from the expatriates as passport fees to the Bangladesh government's exchequer.
Despite media reports, Bangladesh government didn't take any action against the company.