Shipbuilder making wooden bench!

A shipbuilder is making wooden classroom benches!

No matter how weird it may appear, the former vice-chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University in Gopalganj has actually made it possible.

Flouting public procurement rules, Dr Khondoker Nasiruddin, who had to step down amid a string of controversies, assigned Khulna Shipyard (KSY) to supply office and lab equipment and make wooden benches and hostel beds.

The project director resigned in protest, yet the ex-VC remained firm on his decision. 

Nasiruddin inked deals worth Tk 28 crore in June with KSY, to purchase Dell computers, Cannon scanners, HP printers and lab equipment. Of the amount, BSMRSTU has paid out about Tk 26.25 crore in advance.

These deals were not placed before the Board of Regents for approval and faced a good deal of opposition from some officers, said an official of BSMRSTU’s administration department.

“The former VC arbitrarily gave the work to Khulna Shipyard,” he said.

The website of KSY states that the company builds large patrol crafts, inshore patrol vessels, oil tankers, cargo and container vessels, tugs, inland and coastal work boats, heavy duty speed boats, barges, ferries, floating cranes, pontoons, etc.

It also reads KSY is the first and the only warship builder in Bangladesh. Construction of bailey bridges, steel structures, foot over bridges, dredging and earth filling are also examples of work carried out by the company.

Shish Haider Chowdhury, director of the Central Procurement Technical Unit under the implementation, monitoring and evaluation division of the planning ministry, said, “There is no scope for direct contract in procuring furniture and office equipment.”

Section 76 of Public Procurement Rules 2008 points out the circumstances under which direct procurement method (DPM) will be applicable.

An organisation could only go for DPM if there is no alternative source, goods are perishable, goods come as addition to existing tender, exceptional benefit is

offered, there is a legal binding to procure from locals for their poverty alleviation, goods are bought from state-run industry on special occasion, or there is an urgent necessity of goods to face natural disaster and emergency.

However, none of the above criteria applies to the university and internal office documents show that BSMRSTU chose DPM following a verbal instruction from Nasiruddin.

An internal office memo, dated May 30, reads, “It is urgent to procure lab equipment under the university’s Further Development Project. To get supply of lab equipment, upon the verbal instruction of vice-chancellor, two work orders worth Tk 18.52 crore have been issued to Khulna Shipyard.”

The note sheet was undersigned by BSMRSTU’s Deputy Project Director Tuhin Mahmud and former project director Prof MA Sattar, also a contractual teacher and chairman of the university’s agriculture department.

It was then produced before Nasiruddin for approval, which was given that very day.

Another memo, dated June 30, reveals that the KSY demanded Tk 28 crore in advance for supply of the goods.

“Khulna Shipyard has sent a letter (memo no Project- 439/1672), demanding advance against the work orders. Taking the letter into cognisance, the note is produced as per the verbal instruction of the vice-chancellor to take necessary action to give Khulna Shipyard Tk 28 crore in advance,” reads the memo.

Sattar resigned as the project director even before the advance payment could be made. Contacted, he told The Daily Star earlier this month, “I could sense that something was not right. I’ll be blamed in the end.

“I resigned from the post of PD. If they had not accepted my resignation, I would have resigned from professorship as well.”

The project should have been developed after a discussion with the engineering department. “But, here, that did not happen. Things were run by Tuhin.”

He added, “I asked Tuhin several times about the legality of the project, but he kept telling me that there were instances of giving direct contract.”

After his resignation, Nasiruddin appointed Proctor Mohammad Ashikuzzaman Bhuiyan as the project director. On July 24, Ashikuzzaman recommended giving Tk 26.25 crore in advance to KSY.

Following his recommendation, the accounts office prepared three cheques approved by Nasiruddin. After deducting the vat, income tax and security money, KSY was given about Tk 19.44 crore.

University rules make it clear that all projects must be passed by the Board of Regents, an independent government body that oversees a state’s public colleges and universities.

But no meeting of the board has been held this year, its members told The Daily Star recently.

Dr Syed Shamsul Alam, a member of the Board of Regents, and also a professor at the chemistry department of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, said, “As far as I can recall, no meeting of the board of regents took place this year.”

A meeting was scheduled for September 27 but it was later postponed, he added. “I don’t know how the projects got approval.”

Another member of the board, Prof Abdur Rahim Khan, also the dean of the science faculty at BSMRSTU, said, “Many development projects have been undertaken at the university. But none of those were discussed at any board of regents meeting in the last two or three years.”

The university did not have any urgent need for these materials either. Under the project, it ordered about 2,000 six-feet long benches made of Mahogany wood. The unit price of each bench was fixed at Tk 11,100.

As a point of reference, The Daily Star contacted Wahidul Islam, manager of Eastern Wood Works, operated by Bangladesh Forest Industries Development Corporation (BFIDC).                                             

The BFIDC is a state-run organisation that produces furniture and supplies to different organisations, including government ones.

He said the government rate for a six-feet long bench of A-class wood is fixed at Tk 10,670. A-class wood includes timber of Mahogany, Gamari and Rubber trees. In other words, the university could have saved at least Tk 8.6 lakh on furniture alone, if it had opted for an open tender.

Visiting the campus recently, this correspondent saw a huge of number of unused benches lying over a drain and at the entrance of the new academic building and garage.

“There is no space to place the benches. Yet, they ordered more,” said a student of the computer science and engineering department.

The Daily Star could not talk to Nasiruddin over phone. The correspondent sent him a text message, saying he wished to speak to him regarding the allegations.

In response, he texted back, “You can talk to Tuhin Mahmud, DD, Planning responsible for DPM. He has all the details.”

Contacted, Tuhin said Khulna Shipyard showed them their experience in supplying these items to other organisations. “We gave the contract cent percent legally.”

Asked whether the VC could alone take such decisions, he refrained from giving a reply.

Nasiruddin resigned as the vice chancellor of BSMRSTU on September 30, a day after a University Grants Commission (UGC) probe found evidence of irregularities and corruption against him.

In the report, the committee recommended taking legal action against Nasiruddin for his involvement in irregularities and corruption in admission of students and appointment of teachers as well as in various procurements, a member of the probe body told The Daily Star.

The UGC stepped in, following a 12-day nonstop protest by the university students from September 18 seeking his removal.

Six separate work orders worth about Tk 7.12 crore for furniture procurement were issued to KSY on May 29, two work orders worth Tk 18.52 crore for lab equipment on May 30 and three work orders worth Tk 2.7 crore on June 27 for office equipment.

BSMRSTU gave KSY one-year time for delivery of the furniture and office equipment, and six months for the lab equipment since signing of the deals.

This correspondent went through the work orders and saw orders for several machines for the pharmacy department lab; but records show that these items were already purchased in 2015 and 2017.

Some of those are centrifuge with rotor, disintegration test apparatus, microprocessor dissolution rate test apparatus, automatic water distillation plant, melting point apparatus digital, tablet hardness tester, kymograph high speed and single channel micropipette of different volumes.

These projects are being funded by the university’s Tk 250.56 crore Further Development Project, which was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) on October 2, 2018.

A criterion of Ecnec is that all relevant rules in public procurement be followed in use of the funds allocated.

The allocation was for extension of the academic and administration building in Gopalganj, and construction of an auditorium, amphitheatre, Shahid Minar Complex and a mural of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.