DHAKA (AFP) — An employee of Bangladesh's biggest state-owned gas company who earned a mere 100 dollars a month allegedly used his position to pocket a colossal 145 million dollars in bribes over 12 years, an official said Tuesday.
Authorities here described the deception as one of the country's biggest corruption scandals, with countless workers using the company to siphon millions out of public coffers.
"It is a theft of unimaginable scale," said the head of the government's anti-corruption body, Colonel Hasan.
He identified the culprit as Abdul Kader Mollah, a former sales assistant with the Titas Gas Distribution Company who was paid just 100 dollars a month but who allegedly made illicit cash by undercharging thousands of factories.
"As a low level employee, he was to supervise gas distribution in one of the country's biggest industrial areas. And he made the money there," Hasan said of Mollah, who is now 46.
"During his 12-year career his monthly salary was around 100 dollars. But he became a multi-millionaire," the official said, adding the gas worker was "feared by everyone" and enjoyed union and political connections.
Mollah's fortune -- now estimated by authorities at more than 300 million dollars -- was revealed after the military-backed government launched an investigation into the company last year as part of a nationwide anti-graft drive.
But Mollah, who is still under investigation and has not yet been arrested, hit back at the allegations by taking out a quarter-page advertisement Tuesday in at least 11 top newspapers.
He insisted he was only worth 66 million dollars, and that he made the money through hard work -- including setting up textile plants after leaving the gas business in 1997.
Last week authorities said at least 80 percent of Titas' 2,800 workers had made millions of dollars by under-charging in exchange for bribes, although 127 workers have so far agreed to hand back cash to the state.
Titas is the country's largest state-owned gas distributor with an 80 percent market share in Bangladesh, ranked as one of the poorest and most corrupt nations on earth.
Last year the company made a net profit of 37 million dollars on sales of 557 million dollars.
Investigators, however, said they were "astonished" by the scale of internal profiteering in a company supposed to be serving a country where 40 percent of the 144 million population live on less than a dollar a day.
"Almost everyone in the company is a millionaire. They made millions by depriving the country's millions of poor people," Hasan said.
The Ittefaq newspaper meanwhile ran a front page story on three more multi-millionaire gas workers -- including a former receptionist who now allegedly owns an apartment complex and plots of land in posh Dhaka districts.
Bangladesh's government, which came to power in January 2007 following months of political instability, has detained more than 150 politicians, including former ministers accused of accepting bribes for official duties.
In October it widened the drive to state-owned companies.
Currently on trial is former prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who is accused of extorted 435,000 dollars from a power company owner.
Her trial continued Tuesday, with proceedings adjourned until February 11, a state prosecutor said.
Sheikh Hasina's arch-rival and another former premier, Khaleda Zia, is also under arrest and awaiting trial for graft linked to the awarding of a multi-million-dollar government contract.
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
