The Anti-Corruption Commission will inquire into the allegation against former state minister for energy AKM Mosharraf Hossain of taking bribe from Canadian oil company Niko Resources Limited after a Canadian court on Friday convicted the company on charges of bribery.
'We will get details of the case in which Niko Resources was fined by the Canadian court on charges of bribing the former state minister,' the commission's chairman Ghulam Rahman said.
Calgary-based oil company Niko resources on Friday agreed to pay nearly $9.5 million in fines and penalties after admitting in the Alberta Court that it had bribed a former Bangladesh minister.
According to a report published on Friday by a Canadian daily newspaper, The Globe and Mail, , the company accepted charges of providing AKM Mosharraf Hossain with a car and trips to Canada and the United States to escape from giving compensation for the damage caused by the explosion that took place in the Tengratilla gas field in Sylhet in 2005.
Mosharraf resigned in June 2005 after the media in Bangladesh revealed that Niko had given him a Toyota Land Cruiser-Signus 2005.
When asked, Mosharraf, however, brushed aside the allegation against him and termed the verdict of the Canadian court fabricated.
The Globe and Mail report said that Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Justice Scott Brooker said that the bribery 'was an embarrassment to all Canadians' and 'a dark stain on Calgary's reputation' as he passed the sentence that had already been agreed to by prosecutors and the company.
The report said that for several years, a team of Royal Canadian Mounted Police, known as the force's international anti-corruption unit, had been probing the company after the arrests of several Bangladeshi politicians on corruption charges by authorities in Dhaka during the immediate-past military-backed interim government.
Another report of Canadian newspaper published on Saturday said that the RCMP was also investigating Canadian Liberal Senator Mac Harb for criminal breach of trust, alleging
in a sworn affidavit that he had travelled to Bangladesh on a special passport reserved for federal officials, where he lobbied members of the Bangladesh government for Niko Resources.
RCMP officials alleged that his travels to Bangladesh were 'for a purpose other than the public good.'
The report also quoted a Niko statement that said that it had retained Harb, who is also a former member of the parliament for Ottawa Centre, only in a personal capacity and 'not as a senator.'
The company said that it had paid him $65,000 for work done between September 2005 and July 2006.
The Bangladesh Environment Lawyers' Association filed a petition with the High Court in 2005 stating that the gross negligence by Niko Resources in undertaking petroleum operation in Tengratilla (Pashchim Chhatak) caused incidents of explosion and fire on January 7 and June 24 in 2005. The association also demanded Tk 746 crore in damages.
After the petition had been filed, the High Court on September 12, 2005 directed the government to stop paying Niko for the gas from the Feni field and freeze its all bank accounts and also issued a rule on the government to explain why the Bapex-Niko agreement should not be declared illegal.
Petrobangla has not given any payment for the gas from the Feni field till date.
Niko in 2010 filed a case with the International Centre for Settlement of Investments Disputes to realise the payment from Petrobangla.
The Anti-Corruption Commission on December 9, 2007 sued the two former prime ministers, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, who were then detained, for alleged corruption in signing contracts with Niko showing an undiscovered gas field as marginal which caused the state to incur Tk 23,630.50 crore in losses.
Three former ministers, five retired bureaucrats and a Niko official were also accused.
Hasina was implicated in the case filed by the ACC's deputy director MM Shabbir Hasan with the Tejgaon police for causing a loss of Tk 13,630.50 crore.
Her chief secretary SA Samad, former state minister for energy in her cabinet Rafiqul Islam, former energy secretaries Tawfiq Elahi Chowdhury and M Akmal Hossain, the then Petrobangla chairman Mosharraf Hossain and Niko's South Asia vice-president Quashem Sharif were also accused of the same charges.
Khaleda was sued for causing a loss of Tk 10,000 crore. Former law minister Moudud Ahmed and former state minister for energy AKM Mosharraf Hossain in her cabinet, the then acting energy secretary Khandaker Shahidul Islam and Quashem Sharif of Niko were the other accused.
The High Court on March 11, 2010 quashed the charges against Hasina while it earlier stayed the trial against all others.
Source : New Age
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