Two transport leaders sued for embezzling Tk 1.86 crore

Two transports leaders in the district have been sued for embezzling Tk 1.86 crore.

The accused are Pabel Mia, president of Moulvibazar District Auto Tempo, Auto-rickshaw, Mishuk and CNG Transport Workers' Union, and its general secretary Azizul Haque Selim.

Nahidul Islam, deputy director of labour department in Sreemangal, on September 21 filed a case with Sylhet Labour Court in this regard.

According to the case statement, after verifying the annual income and expenditure of the union submitted in 2018, assistant directors -- Sohel Azim and Yusuf Ahmad Chowdhury – of the labour department on January 12 this year conducted a field investigation in presence of the union president Pabel and general secretary Selim. On January 14, they submitted the investigation report to the deputy director of the labour department.

The union showed that its income was Tk 51.32 lakh and expenditure Tk 51.20 lakh in 2016. But the investigation found that Tk 20 is collected from 17,000 members of the union in seven upazilas of the district. Receipt books were used to collect the money. The district committee of the union gets Tk 3 from the money they collected.

According to the data, the income of the district committee is about Tk 51,000 per day which is 1 crore 86 lakh 15 thousand taka per year. The union did not show the income in the tax return submitted in 2018.

Besides, in the return submitted by the union, it was shown that Tk 51.32 lakh was earned annually from subscription fees, but no record was kept in favour of the expenditure. Although there is 17-member committee in the union, the return was signed only by union president Pabel and general secretary Selim.

Despite repeated attempts, this correspondent could not reach president Pabel for his comment on the issue as he did not receive the phone call.

On the other hand, General Secretary Selim said that "The plaintiff of the case has no jurisdiction to file the case. He has personally informed me that he has filed this case under the pressure of influential people."  Deputy Director of the labour department in Sreemangal Nahidul Islam said they filed the case after the investigation committee found the transport leaders' involvement in the money embezzlement.