Railway faces severe repercussions

A high-powered investigation team recently found that the money was misappropriated from the family pension scheme during the period from January 2001 to July 2003.

A nexus of officials and employees of accounts section at Chittagong railway office and Kamalapur railway station are responsible for the embezzlement, sources said.

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Over the past one month, the three-member probe committee scanned about one lakh official documents and quizzed the officials and employees of the accounts and pension sections.

Formed on August 28 this year, the committee was asked to submit its report on September 9.

But the committee took more time to complete the investigation, railway officials said.

"We hope to submit the report within a week as the investigation is almost complete," said Chief Traffic Manager Aftabuddin Ahmed, convenor of the probe body.

"The committee has already detected the misappropriation of pension money, but we don't like to disclose everything at the moment in the greater interest of the investigation," he said.

More than eight railway staffs were found responsible for the embezzlement, who drew the money by producing over 1000 copies of fake pension payment order (PPO), said MA Halim, a member of the committee.

"We found that there was a lack of supervision in the payment process. The PPOs were not properly scrutinised and pension audit code was not followed," Halim said. "In fact, the receipts which reached the Chittagong office were not examined at all."

"Had those receipts been examined after the payment, the corrupt practices would have been unveiled long ago," he said.

"We also found that a nexus is involved in the misappropriation of funds. This group engaged about 50 women to drew the money," Halim added.

"The photographs of those women with fake addresses are now lying at the office of payment," he said but declined to elaborate.

"The committee found that 3,000 prescribed forms of PPO have been missing from the accounts office here. These forms might have been used by the nexus," said an official of Chittagong railway, preferring anonymity.

"Recently, misappropriation of pension money of Tk 10 lakh was also detected in Comilla," he said.

"A big network is involved in such corrupt practices. Everything will come to light after the submission of the investigation report and anti-corruption officials are also waiting to file suit in this regard."

"The pension money were embezzled very tactfully as there was no pre-audit or post-audit system in the process of the payment," said Deputy Finance Advisor Sohel Ahmed who has been posted at the accounts and pension section of Chittagong railway office on deputation since August.

The receipts were also not examined after payment as there is a shortage of manpower in the accounts section here, he said.