Dhaka: The Anti-Corruption Commission chairman has yet again eaten up his own words and claimed founding evidence of ‘corruption conspiracy’ during fresh investigation into the Padma Bridge graft allegation.

Following World Bank pre-conditions to probe afresh allegations of corruption in cooperation with international graft experts for resuming Padma Bridge funding, ACC chairman Golam Rahman said the graft watchdog has detected corruption conspiracy.

"So it is apparent, some mystery is there."

This is first time the anti-graft watchdog chief has talked about corruption in the project.

The ACC chairman on Tuesday said, “During the inquiry, we’ve found the evidence of corruption conspiracy. Some people were involved in the conspiracy to serve their personal interests,” he told reporters in front of the ACC headquarters in the capital city’s Segunbagicha in the evening.

The ACC chairman said the Commission has launched the second phase of probe into the Padma Bridge project so that it could be made credible and lawful as required for securing WB funding for the country’s biggest infrastructure projects.

He said the World Bank is helping the graft watchdog to complete its inquiry into the graft allegations. “We hope the probe will be completed by December 3 next and the Commission, after receiving the probe report, will decide what would be its next legal steps in this regard.”

As the Canadian government has not yet responded to the mutual legal assistances request (MLAR) of Bangladesh, Golam Rahman said the ACC inquiry officers are communicating with the Canadian authorities to collect information over the graft allegations.

He said the World Bank’s expert panel will arrive in Dhaka in early next month to discuss with ACC the progress of the probe into the Padma graft allegations.

Replying to a question, he said the Commission does not feel any political pressure from the government during the inquiry.

In an official statement on June 30, the World Bank said it has found ‘credible evidence’ corroborated by a variety of sources which points to a high-level corruption conspiracy among Bangladesh government officials and private individuals in connection with the project, and all the evidences had been sent to the Bangladeshi Prime Minister, as well as the Finance Minister and the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in September 2011 and April 2012.

 “We urged the authorities of Bangladesh to investigate this matter fully and, where justified, prosecute those responsible for corruption. We did so because we hoped the government would give the matter the serious attention it warrants,” the statement said.

The World Bank alleged the government did not take effective steps to probe the incident and finally scrapped its US$1.2 billion credit in support of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project.

Ends/AMA/27/11/12