Govt officials account for 50pc ACC accused persons
Staff Reporter :
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed 98 cases in first six months (January- June) of the current year on allegations of involvement in corruption and irregularities where 214 people have been accused of in these cases.
Among these accused, a total of 111 people are government officials and employees, which is more 50 per cent of the implicated persons.
Besides, out of the total accused, 46 are private employees, 19 businessmen and 37 people from other professions.
However, among the cases, 37 were filed against for acquiring assets beyond known income source.
The commission filed 49 cases for embezzlement, 10 for forgery and one case of money laundering.
Apart from this, in last six months 92 charge sheets have been filed against 194 people with no politicians.
ACC Commissioner (Inquiry) Zahaurul Haque said the reason for not filing any case or charge sheet against politicians is the lack of complaints.
”The commission find no complaint against the politicians this time. So, there is no opportunity to take action against any of them.” he added.
Zahurul Haque expressed that the commission is active enough following the legal procedures. Statistics of the last six months also showed our efforts to prevent corruption in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, the ACC is only empowered to investigate bribery and corruption out of 27 money laundering related offencebecause of the legal directions.
It is observed that the amendment of the Money Laundering prevention Act Act-2012 in 2015 and 2019 reduced the powers of the ACC. As a result, it’s unable to properly investigate money laundering, and has been failing to ensure convictions in corruption cases.
In last five years, ACC has registered a total of 1,680 cases. Out of this, 406 cases were filed in 2022, 347 in 2021, 348 in 2020.In the years of 2018 and 2019 the number was 363 and 216 respectively.
ACC submitted 1,215 charge sheets in the court from 2018 to 2022. Among these 224 charge sheets submitted in last year. In 2021 the number was 260, 228 in 2020, and in the year of 2018 and 2019 the number was 236 and 267 respectively.
