THE Anti-Corruption Commission revealed that Biman Bangladesh high-ups, including some of its board members, have been involved in misappropriating huge amount of money. Besides, some Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) officials accept bribes from contractors, who are allegedly “looting money” by building poor-quality towers and boarding bridges. The ACC detected corruption in eight sectors at Biman and 11 sectors at the CAAB. Biman is a losing concern for many years though the successive governments modernized the carrier several times.
In case of purchase and lease of aircraft, some intermediary firms work as the liaison between the service providers and the Biman high-ups. Spending huge money, the aircraft producing companies make officials agree to fix the specification of aircraft procurement in a way so that only the preferred company gets the work. They show estimated price several times higher than the actual price. Some among the Biman top brass and the board of directors have a direct partnership in these intermediary firms, for which Biman lost several thousand crores of taka.
The probe committee further found that tenders are invited at a time when renowned companies do not have any stock of aircraft, resulting in Biman had to take the lease of low-quality aircraft at higher rates. In case of maintenance and overhaul, officials and board members award the work to their preferred organisations with the same intention to loot public money. Ground service is one of the most corrupt sectors at Biman Bangladesh Airlines. Every day several million takas are collected from different airlines for ground service. In reality, it was found that different airlines do most of the job of ground service with their own logistic service. As a result, many foreign airlines have become reluctant to operate in Bangladesh, while many stopped their operation altogether in Dhaka.
The ACC findings are horrendous but we do welcome the ACC for detecting the problems and made it public. Now the government has a lot to do, including punish the corrupt officials. None can feel free to looting the public money also damaging the image of the national flag carrier.
