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Telegraph scripts trouble

Offices of the obsolete technology spend 15 times their earnings; ACC asks BTCL to shut all offices soon

Emran Hossain
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) recommended Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL) to permanently close all its telegraph offices after a probe revealed that expenditure of the almost idle and corruption-riddled offices were 15 times their income between 2000 and 2008.
The investigation found that even though telegraph is hardly used nowadays, there are about 3,500 people employed in 450 telegraph offices in the country.
A number of employees are involved in abusing power and corruption causing a huge loss of government money, the ACC said.
The probe also revealed that during the eight years each telegraph office on a monthly average received and distributed telegrams worth onlyTk 200.
It was found that in the eight years the telegraph sector under BTCL--former BTTB -earned about Tk 2 crore and spent Tk 29.76 crore in operating cost. The
investigation disclosed that a large chunk of this money was misappropriated through various illegal means and corruption.
There has been hardly any work at telegraph offices after 1999 when mobile and internet technology started spreading fast. Most countries in the world do not use telegraph anymore. Only ships useitasalast resort of communication.
"In reality, the people employed in telegraph offices do not have any work. And the little work that is done does not require fulltime employment of so many," ACC Director General Col Hanif Iqbal told The Daily Star yesterday.
"The government can use this man-
power in other service sectors," Hanif added.
He said corruption in telegraph offices is still under investigation and action will be taken as per law against people involved in illegal activities.
The telegraph offices only deal with a few telegraphs made by a number of banks. Government and a few private office employees also use telegraph when they need to extend their leave as telegraph provides evidence of their communication with their offices, the ACC investigation found.
CORRUPTION
Of the total 29.76 crore spent by telegraph offices, Tk 87.14 lakh was spent under office contingency during the eight years.
Officials of telegraph offices showed that they had to payTk 83.70 lakh in electricity bills against an allocation ofTk 82.87 lakh. However, the investigation found that only Tk 6.52 lakh was actually paid for electricity and the rest Tk 77.17 lakh was misappropriated under the cover of repair works and purchase of materials. Investigators said the allocated money for electricity cannot be used in any other purposes like purchasing materials, repairing or maintainingequipment.
The ACC discovered the matter going through records collected from the Central Telegraph Office and International Telegraph Office in Ramna, Dhaka, the telegraph office in Khulna and the chief superintendent's office in Chittagong.