Accusation to tarnish ACC Chairman's image!

by Aminur Rahman
November 2, 2008

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/122/accusation-to-tarnish-acc-chairmans-image

General Hassan Mashhood Chowdhury, former Army chief of Bangladesh and recently the Chairman of ACC. A man whose integrity has never been questioned during his long career. A complaint has recently been brought against the Anti Corruption Commission Chairman General Hassan Mashhood Chowdhury by Mahmoodur Rahman, the former adviser to the ministry of energy and mineral resources during Khaleda Zia's time in office for allegedly smuggling out over Taka 200 million of Trust Bank Limited. The request has been denied by Ramna and Motijheel police stations by turning down to lodge the case. Officers in charge of both the police stations rejected the complaint on the ground that the place of occurrence as mentioned in the case was out of their jurisdiction.

According to Mr. Rahman, the present government had come to power with a promise to fight corruption. They arrested a number of political leaders on charge of their assumed involvement in corruption. Mahmood feels there was no transparency in government's anti-corruption actions.

Mahmoodur Rahman justified his allegation saying that the Trust Bank suffered a 'net loss' of Taka 140 million in the year 2002, while a net profit of Taka 54 million in the year 2001; during the term of Hassan Mashhood Chowdhury's chairmanship. As per rule of TRUST BANK, the chief of army is also the chairman of the bank.

Mahmoodur Rahman cited the audit report of the bank, the report said that the bank had incurred a loss of Taka 200 million in foreign currency dealings in 2002, but its previous annual reports did not show any transactions under the head.

Inter - bank foreign exchange trading that caused big losses to at least eight banks about six years back has suddenly been wrongly labeled as money laundering. Bangladesh Bank, [state bank of Bangladesh] had resolved the matter as transactional losses quite a while ago.

It is now clearly understood that efforts were made to accuse General Mashhood that he had laundered money from Trust Bank. A number of both private and state-owned commercial banks had faced a huge loss through cross currency dealings. Not only Trust Bank but commercial banks like AB Bank, Shahjalal Bank and state owned commercial bank Sonali Bank too suffered loss which was purely transactional losses.

The latest twist in the story:

Mahmoodur Rahman, who is also the Chairman of Vernacular Daily AMAR-DESH, sent a complaint to the Anti-corruption Commission accusing its Chairman Hassan Mashhood Chowdhury of laundering Trust Bank money. Mr. Rahman put Mr. Chowdhury into a real embarrassment, for; Chowdhury now himself has to give verdict on a case against him!

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