Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The Home Ministry has sought Tk 139.86 crore from the Finance Ministry for buying 30,000 shotguns and 3,000,000 cartridges for the Ansar and VDP before the upcoming parliamentary elections schedule to be held on 30 December.
Members of the Ansar and VDP will also use the arms and ammunition to guard polling centres during the polls.
The Home Ministry sought release of the fund (from the budgetary allocation) in a letter to the Finance Division, under the Ministry of Finance, on 15 November.
Earlier, the government allocated Tk 215 crore in the current fiscal’s budget to procure arms and ammunition and logistics for the Ansar and VDP, a paramilitary auxiliary force responsible for the preservation of the country’s internal security and law enforcement.
Of the allocation, disbursement of Tk 101.41 crore has been sought for buying 12-bore 30,000 shotguns and Tk 38.44 crore for 3,000,000 cartridges, according to the letter singed by Abu Naser Bhuiyan, Deputy Secretary of the Public Safety Division, under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The Ansar and VDP authorities will purchase shotguns from Italy, Turkey and the UK and cartridges from Poland and Turkey.
The arms and ammunition would be purchased through the Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory Limited (BMTF), a state-owned enterprise run by the Bangladesh Army, under the direct procurement method (DPM) from the budgetary funds of the Ansar and VDP, according to the letter.
The Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase recently approved the purchase of arms and ammunition for Ansar and VDP in line with a Home Ministry proposal.
“We sought release of the fund to buy the weapons for the Ansar and VDP forces before the election. The purchases would be made through the BMTF without floating bids,” an anonymous official of the Home Ministry told The New Nation.
He said that they have not enough time to go for tender formalities. So, the BMTF has been entrusted with the task to procure the arms and ammos directly from the specified countries within the shortest possible time.
An anonymous source in the Ansar and VDP told The New Nation yesterday that the shipments of the weaponry is expected to reach Chattogram Port between 30th November and first week of December.
Nearly 500,000 members of the Ansar and VDP would be deployed at approximate 40,200 polling centres across the country during the polls, according to Election Monitoring Cell of the force.
A team comprising 12 Ansar and VDP members would be deployed at every polling centre. Two of the members would carry firearms and the rest would carry sticks to ensure the security of the polling centers.
