Xinhua/Dhaka
Bangladesh’s anti-corruption watchdog yesterday arrested two prime suspects including a former secretary of the government on charge of conspiracy to commit bribery to appoint a Canadian firm as consultant for the country’s mega Padma bridge project.
Former secretary of the bridges division Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and superintendent engineer of Bangladesh Bridge Authority Kazi Mohammad Ferdous were arrested on their way back from High Court in capital Dhaka.
An emergency bench of the court refused to hear the bail petition the duo had filed on December 19.
The arrest was made eight days after the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in Dhaka’s Banani police station lodged a case in which four Bangladesh government officials including Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and three officials of Canadian engineering firm SNC Lavalin have been accused.
ACC deputy director Abdullah Al Zahid who filed the case told reporters in a press briefing that “the accused have hatched conspiracy to commit bribery to appoint SNC Lavalin as the project’s consultant.”
“The conspiracy they hatched has come under spotlight before bribe money transacted,” said the official.
Zahid said former communications minister Syed Abul Hossain and former state minister for foreign affairs Abul Hasan Chowdhury were added to the list of suspects.
Two SNC Lavalin officials are reportedly facing trial in a Canadian court on charges of bribing Bangladeshi government officials to get the $50mn consultancy job in the bridge project.
The World Bank on June 29 canceled its $1.2bn funding for about $3bn Padma project, saying it had “credible evidence corroborated by a variety of sources which points to a high-level corruption conspiracy among Bangladeshi government officials, SNC-Lavalin executives and private individuals in connection with the Padma multipurpose bridge project.”
The global lender on September 21 decided to revive the loan after the Bangladeshi government agreed to its terms and conditions.
The 10km-long bridge will be built over the Padma river, one of the three biggest rivers in Bangladesh. About 6.15km of the bridge will be built over the river while the remaining part on both banks. Apart from connecting nearly 30mn people in Bangladesh’s southwest region to the rest of the country, the bridge will enhance regional trade and collaboration along the Asian highway No 1 and the Trans-Asian railway network systems.