Fire at BB head office raises many questions

THE fire incident at Bangladesh Bank has come as a renewed shock to the nation prompting questions from many quarters how the central bank is falling is so insecure as a highly sensitive establishment from national security perspective. The incident just within one year of the sensational money heist of over $101 million from the bank’s New York vault breaking cyber security at Bangladesh Bank’s headquarter in Dhaka is highly disturbing. We don’t know yet how the fire broke out at the bank’s 13th floor and the investigation committee set-up by the government may invariably report some faults of electric gears at the end. This is the simple way of avoiding blame. But in our view such report always remain misleading to cover up the actual security break in.

The bigger question here is whether or not the security arrangement at Bangladesh Bank is enough to forestall such incidents and the people responsible for it are trustworthy to ensure foolproof security to the sensitive establishment. It appears that the government is failing to give protection to such institutions when vested interest groups are at work to make good of their fortune.

We don’t know why the government did not release the cyber heist probe report of the central bank money when leaked reports said people from inside the bank collaborated to the break in. The government refusal to make the report public has almost totally shattered public trust in its security arrangement. Many believe that by refusing to public the report it has indeed protected big perpetrators and the fire incidents may be haunting many to figure out such attempt again. The visit to the spot by Finance Minister and Bangladesh Bank governor immediately after the fire broke out and setting-up of an Investigation Committee also partly showed their tension in this respect.

What seems to be highly intriguing is that the fire broke out in the General Manager’s room of the Foreign Currency Department. It has destroyed several tonnes of important files and we don’t know if it was an accidental fire or intentional one to destroy some case documents in the process to hide bigger crimes. To us when high security places like Bangladesh Bank become vulnerable to serious incidents like break in or devastating fire, no other establishment is also safe from unforeseen incidents. The fact is that when the government is otherwise politically busy to hold in power; dishonest people are breaking in to take advantage of it. Failure to give protection to sensitive institutions is the failure of the government to govern. Although we are yet to know the reason clearly, the fire at Bangladesh Bank has invariably put the credibility of the government to bigger question.