Tarek Mahmud Joy, Jhenaidah

There have been allegations of widespread irregularities and corruption in the ongoing urban governance and infrastructure development mega project in Maheshpur Municipality at a cost of 42 crore taka.

Executive Engineer Sohel Rana himself has been allegedly paying bills to contractors violating the tender schedule and doing substandard work. There has also been wanton looting in the TR project. There has been an incident of locking the room of Deputy Assistant Engineer Saiful Islam of Maheshpur Municipality for refusing to sign some such corrupt bills.

It is alleged that Executive Engineer Sohel Rana committed this immoral act with the help of his office designer Tariqul Islam. After locking the room of the Deputy Assistant Engineer on Thursday (July 2) afternoon, it was not opened until the end of office hours. As a result, the victim's deputy assistant engineer was forced to stand on the balcony from 12 noon to 5 pm and finally return home. There is currently extreme panic and anger among the municipal officials and employees over this incident.

The investigation revealed that under this mega project of 42 crore taka, the work of constructing RCC drains, carpeting roads and RCCing the market roads is going on. Under the direct encouragement of the executive engineer, the contractors are collecting the bills using very low-quality materials. There are rumors that the executive engineer is taking a commission or bribe at the rate of 2% for each bill. Much less rods have been used than allocated for the construction of RCC drains under the project.

Although three dustbins were supposed to be constructed under the TR project, only one was constructed and the entire amount was withdrawn. Halogen lamps worth only 5 thousand taka at the market rate were shown to be purchased for 20 thousand taka. Although sufficient CCTV cameras were supposed to be installed across the city, only 5-6 have been installed and no awareness billboards have been installed.

However, all the money from the TR project has been withdrawn before the deadline of June 30. The corruption does not end here, more than 6 crore taka has been embezzled in the name of installing solar lights in various areas of the municipality under the climate project. There, very low-cost and low-quality solar panels have been installed and high-priced bills have been passed.
In addition, a road in front of the municipality and a road in the market that was tendered for repair have been shown to be repaired several times and about half a crore taka has been embezzled through fake bills.

The money collected from the municipality's taxes is being embezzled through fake bills and vouchers instead of being deposited in the main fund.

Without paying any consultant firm to verify the design of the construction of pucca buildings, those concerned are filling their pockets with lakhs of taka by getting the municipality's designer to sign illegal seals and signatures. The executive engineer got angry when Deputy Assistant Engineer Saiful Islam refused to sign these fake memos, vouchers and corruption bills and locked his room.

When asked about the locking of the room, Maheshpur Municipality Executive Engineer Sohel Rana refused to comment.

However, Maheshpur Municipality Administrator and UNO Sajjad Hossain said that the locking of the government office is very unfortunate. Although he could not take immediate action due to his busy examination duty, he visited the scene after receiving the news.

Legal action will be taken immediately regarding the locking of the Deputy Assistant Engineer's room and if necessary, the ministry will be informed in writing to take action against the responsible persons.

Deputy Director of the Local Government Rathindranath Roy said, a detailed report of the entire incident has been sought from the municipality administrator regarding the locking of the room of the Deputy Assistant Engineer of Maheshpur Municipality.