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Story of a skewed deal

Pinaki Roy
Top officials of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) helped Belhasa Accom JV Ltd, a UAE-based joint venture with Obaidul Karim's Orion Group, to get the project for constructing City Centre, the tallest commercial tower-cum-car parking in the country.
An investigation by the task forces into the tender process of the project revealed huge corruption immensely benefiting scamster Obaidul Karim while incurring a loss of at least Tk 50 crore to DCC, said a source in the city corporation.
Blessed by the BNP-led four-party alliance government, Obaidul's companies bagged dozens of large-scale deals on own terms even without having appropriate qualification. The 37-storey City Centre is one such ongoing project.
"The tender was floated in a way so that the authorities can announce any company as
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defaulter and award Orion Group the work, said the DCC source, adding. "A few top men of the IK t made quick cash out of the deal."
Ihe task force sources said they are still investigating the matter.
The DCC floated a tender on May 11. 2003 asking for design and financial proposal for a tower on the DCC land. Five companies took part in the bid.
GBB Ltd in its project proposal offered DCC' 40 percent of floor area of its 26-storey tower on the city corporation's land. Al Amin l td offered to give DCC 30 percent of a 34-storev building and Belhasa offered only 21 percent of a37-storey building.
The two other companies that participated in the bidding were announced defaulter for not submitting proper designs of their proposed building.
These companies could not protest the DCC decision," the source said, adding that the highest bidder was not even asked whether it could offer 40 percent of the total floor area if it were asked to build a 37-storey building.
When the task force recently contacted the company it came to learn that the company was ready to offer 40 percent of floor area if it were asked to build a 37-'torey building, the source added.
Belhasa got the work order within just 19 days of advertising the tender in newspapers although it offered the DCC less share.
On May 19. 2003--just after eight days of floating the tender, the DCC officials evaluated the proposal. They sat to evaluate the financial proposal on May 25 and handed over the work order to Belhasa on May 29. the source said.
Citing the taskforce investigation, the source said if the DCC had got 40 percent floor area instead of 21 percent, it would have gained 81,000 square feet more floor area worth at least Tk
50 crore.
The total floor area of the City Centre with its 33 floors, the ground floor and three basements is 4,79.500 square feet.
The DCC technical committee comprised the then project director Engineer Ashiqur Rahman, then chief engineer Dr Golam Kadir, additional chief engineer Idris Miah and superintendent engineer Lutfar Rahman.
Of them, Golam Kadir went to the USA in 2004 and never came back. Engineer Idris Miah and Lutfar Rahman are now in retirement and Ashiqur Rahman was suspended recently for his involvement in corruption in the Jatrabari-Gulistan flyover project.
Orion chief Obaidul Karim, who has been absconding since January last year, has recently been convicted in the Oriental Bank forgery case. He is also the main accused in another forgery case involving the Oriental Bank from where he siphoned off almost Tk 600 crore during the rule of the alliance government. Obaidul is also accused in a case regarding ill-gotten wealth and another for evading import duty-fora luxury car.
Task force sources said investigations into different bank forgery by Obaidul are going on.
The Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating Obaidul's ill-gotten wealth under a case for failing to submit his wealth statement.
Besides, the task forces are investigating different large-scale deals the Orion boss bagged during the alliance government's rule. These include the Jatrabari-Gulistan flyover project and the Meghnaghat power project.
"It will take time to complete all investigations because all these projects are big and some involve foreign investors. But there are huge corruption in each of the projects and there will be more cases against Obaidul Karim in near future." said a source.