ACC investigation begins

A two-member team of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday started probe into different irregularities in implementation of various development programmes of the country's largest Teesta Irrigation Project under Water Development Board (WDB) in Dalia division of the district.

The team comprises of Assistant Director of ACC in Dinajpur region Birkanto Roy and Deputy Assistant Director Md Kamruzzaman.

According to the letter of ACC given to WDB in Dalia, it is learnt that the ACC team was likely to investigate irregularities of development works under 'request for quotation' (RFQ) and emergency works in 2014-2015 fiscal year.

Those works include repairing of right and left embankments of the Teesta river and the main canal and purchase of different machinery and spare parts in the form of 64 projects.

Regarding the irregularities, reports were published in different newspapers on August 4 and 5 in 2015 titled 'misappropriation of money of 64 projects in Dalia division of WDB.'

Responding to the report, Azizul Huque, deputy assistant director of ACC head office in Dhaka, sent a letter to WDB office in Dalia division on October 6 last year asking officials concerned and contractors to appear before the ACC head office in person and give clarification before October 16 the same year.

But the officials concerned, instead of following the directives, sent a letter with clarification to ACC with signatures of contractors and WDB officials, which were not accepted.

ACC Deputy Assistant Director Birkanto Roy sent a letter to the of WDB in Dalia October 2 this year asking officials concerned and contractor to be present in executive engineer’s office on October 18 and face probe.

Mostafizur Rahman, executive engineer of WDB's Dalia division, admitted of arrival of ACC team which started investigation on irregularities if any.