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Rice crisis matter of corruption

Observes ACC chief

Staff Correspondent
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Chairman Lt Gen (retd) Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury yesterday termed the ongoing rice crisis a matter of corruption resulting in inconsistency between supply and demand.
The ACC boss also observed that the government must reduce the existing gap between supply of and demand for rice. The ACC would watch fertiliser production, distribution, stocking and dealership to look for the causes behind fertiliser crisis, he said.
Meanwhile, the commission yesterday filed a case against former Awami League (AL) legislator Ali Reza Raju for amassing wealth “illegally" beyond known sources of income and concealing information in his wealth statement.
At a regular news briefing at the ACC headquarters, Hasan Mashhud said: "The act that is not acceptable to conscience is
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corruption. And the acute scarcity of rice is corruption. The crisis is not supposed to be created if consistency between supply and demand is maintained.
"I have nothing to do. The government will take steps in this regard," he said in reply to a question whether ACC would track traces of corruption behind rice crisis.
He added that there might have been involvement of individual businesspersons or officials concerned behind the crisis.
The ACC will focus on the issue of fertiliser as a part of its drive named "institutional corruption" initiated at the end of last year.
The ACC chief observed that if a crisis persists despite normal supply, then it is necessary to investigate thedealership.
Other service-oriented ministries and departments set to be brought under the drive include education, telegraph and telephone (T&T), Roads & Highways, communications, and Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD).
"If pieces of evidence are available we can go for action against corrupt suspects as we are not
influenced. We need hard evidence to make move because if we fail high-profile corrupt suspects would get away." He made the comment in reply to a question over not taking action against "graft" by LGRD, though it has earned the reputation of being the most corrupt government ministry as per a report of Transparency International, Bangladesh.
The anti-graft watchdog chief also briefed reporters about prevention and eradication of corruption, and status of the cases being conducted by ACC.
CASE AGAINST RAJU
ACC Assistant Director Abubakar Siddique filed the case with Jessore Kotwali Police Station for amassing Tk 20.64 lakh wealth earned beyond known sources of income.
In the first information report the complainant mentioned that Raju in his wealth statement concealed information about wealth worth Tk 29.371akh including those amassed illegally.
The case was filed under sections 27 (1), 26 (2), and 15 (d) (5) of the Emergency Power Rules.
Raju submitted the statement on July 22 after the ACC on July 3 served a notice asking him to submit his wealth statement.