The Anti-Corruption Commission on Monday filed a case against six people, including former Dhaka South City Corporation chief executive officer Khan Mohammad Bilal and former chief revenue officer Md Yusuf Ali Sardar, on charges of embezzling Tk聽25.13 crore of state revenue.
The commission assistant director, Md Rubel Hasan, filed the case with its integrated district office in Dhaka-1, said ACC assistant director for public relations Tanzir Ahmed.
The other accused are TCL Optoelectronics Ltd managing director Md Akhter Hamid Khan, Proprietor of Best One Mosammat Momtaz Begum, Proprietor of Boishakhi Traders Md Gaffar Elahi, and proprietor of G-Tech Sultana Dil Afroza.
According to the case statement, the accused, with ill intent and in collusion, violated public trust and abused official power to illegally benefit private firms while depriving the state of legitimate revenue.
During the inquiry, the ACC found that Bilal and Yusuf, as convener and member secretary of the advertisement and beautification committee, set the annual renewal fee for illuminated LED signboards at Tk 800 a square foot instead of the approved Tk 20,000 a square foot as per the DSCC鈥檚 2015 and 2016 tax schedules.
This unauthorised rate adjustment allegedly helped several advertisement firms under their supervision 鈥� including TCL Optoelectronics, Best One, Boishakhi Traders, and G-Tech 鈥� to pay lower renewal fees between the financial years 2015鈥�16 and 2020鈥�21, causing financial losses to the city corporation.
TCL Optoelectronics Ltd, managed by Akhter Hamid Khan, allegedly embezzled about Tk 15.22 crore between FY 2017鈥�18 and 2020鈥�21, Best One, owned by Momtaz Begum, allegedly embezzled Tk 73.73 lakh between FY 2016鈥�17 and 2019鈥�20, Boishakhi Traders, owned by Md Gaffar Elahi, allegedly embezzled Tk 7.28 crore between FY 2016鈥�17 and 2019鈥�20 and G-Tech, owned by Sultana Dil Afroza, allegedly embezzled Tk 1.90 crore between FY 2016鈥�17 and 2019鈥�20.
The commission alleged that all the accused jointly caused total losses of Tk 25.13 crore to state revenue through abuse of power and criminal conspiracy.
