The Anti-Corruption Commission chairman, Mohammad Abdul Momen, on Wednesday said that verdicts in six cases against deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her family members for irregularities in the Purbachal New Town Project plot allocation were expected to be delivered in October or November.
He also said that steps were being taken to revive the graft case against Hasina鈥檚 niece and British lawmaker Tulip Siddiq, which has been stayed by the High Court.
He came up with the remarks while speaking to journalists after signing a five-year memorandum of understanding with Transparency International, Bangladesh.
ACC director general Md Akhtar Hossain and TIB executive director Iftekharuzzaman signed the agreement at the ACC headquarters in Dhaka.
This is the fifth MoU aimed at preventing corruption.
On Bangladesh鈥檚 position in the Corruption Perceptions Index, the commission chairman said that the government, for the first time, had accepted the results of the index without any protests.
He said, 鈥業t is close to the truth. That is why we have accepted it.鈥�
About internal corruption, the ACC chairman said, 鈥業f the ACC itself is not free from corruption, it has no moral authority to call out other institutions. That is why we are working to prevent corruption within our own house.鈥�
Iftekharuzzaman, also the head of the Anti-Corruption Commission Reform Commission, said that they had submitted the reform commission鈥檚 report to the government but they still had no concrete information on how much progress had been made in implementing the actionable recommendations.
鈥楾his is a matter of concern,鈥� he said.
鈥楨xcept for one or two, there was political consensus on almost all our recommendations. There are no major obstacles to ACC reform,鈥� he said.
He said, 鈥榃e first signed an MoU with the ACC in 2015. Until now, the agreements had a two to three-year term. The current term ends on September 30.鈥�
鈥楢mong the several areas we have agreed upon, a key one is cooperation in research, data collection, and analysis. This will facilitate joint or independent research,鈥� he said.
鈥楾he second area is the expansion of advisory activities for corruption prevention at both national and local levels,鈥� he said.