Nuke plant graft: 16 govt officials suspended
Sixteen officials of the Housing and Public Works Ministry have been suspended for their involvement in graft while purchasing furniture and other household items for Green City housing project under Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) Project.
The ministry issued an order on Wednesday in this regard.
The action came hours after Housing and Public Works Minister SM Rezaul Karim told a press conference that two probe committees have found the involvement of 34 government officials in irregularities in purchasing the goods for the project.
Thirty of the officials are from the Housing and Public Works Ministry while the remaining four are from the Science and Technology Ministry, he said.
The minister said it has been decided to file departmental cases against 16 officials of the Housing and Public Works Ministry after suspending them, and necessary legal action, including filing of departmental cases, will be taken against 10 ministry officials.
Of the rest four officials, one is on retirement while three others are enjoying PRL, he said, adding that different action will be taken against them.
The officials under the Science and Technology Ministry are RNPP project director Dr Shawkat Akbar, deputy project director Hasinur Rahman, sub-assistant engineer Mehdi Hasan and Md Mahabub.
Rezaul said they wrote the Science and Technology Ministry to take action against them.
The money that went down the drain, amounting to Tk 364,009,000, will be realised from the contractor company, said the minister. "The licence of the contractor company will also be cancelled.
Following reports on alleged irregularities, the ministry formed the two probe bodies to look into the irregularities.
According to the reports, each pillow was shown to have cost Tk 5,957 and Tk 760 was shown as the lifting charge for each pillow while an electric stove was shown to have been bought for Tk 7,747 with an additional lifting charge of Tk 6,650.
The purchase price of an electric kettle was reportedly Tk 5,313 while its lifting cost was Tk 2,945.
Similarly, a room-cleaning machine, purchased at Tk 12,018, was lifted spending Tk 6,650.
