RCC Money With LGED
Jhantu gives 10-day deadline for refunding the amount
24 January 2013, 18:00 PM
Our Correspondent, Rangpur
Shorfuddin Ahmed JhantuShorfuddin Ahmed Jhantu, newly elected mayor of Rangpur City Corporation (RCC), gave a 10-day ultimatum to the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) for refunding the money of Shyma-Sundari Canal Re-excavation Project to the account of RCC.
The mayor announced the deadline at a public meeting at Rangpur Central Shaheed Minar premises yesterday afternoon.
Earlier, the local government ministry transferred the fund of the project to the account of LGED.
At a press conference on January 21, Jhantu had declared that if the fund was not returned to RCC, he would hold a rally on January 24 and take the next steps.
Jhantu claimed that to hide irregularities, Abu Alam Md. Shahid Khan, secretary, LGED under the Ministry of LGRD and Cooperatives and AKM Abdur Rouf Manik, former municipality mayor of Rangpur had transferred over Tk 3 crore to LGED from RCC.
He threatened that if they did not return the money within next 10 days, people of Rangpur would declare Abu Alam Md. Shahid Khan as persona non-grata.
Zahurul Islam Ajbar, councillor of ward 17 of RCC, presided the rally.
Among others, councillors Abul Kasem, Nizamul Hasan, Shajalal Bakul, Akram Khan, Abdur Razzak of RCC spoke at the rally.
Jhantu at the press conference on January 21 also expressed deep concern as the government was yet to formally give him the charge of mayor.
He alleged the project was implemented by the brother, nephew and brother-in-law of the LGED secretary.
Emdad Ali, chief engineer of RCC, said Tk 23 crore was allocated for the project. Of them, Tk 9.95 crore was deposited to the bank account of RCC, he said.
Four construction firms implemented the work under six packages of the project, said the engineer.
Of the RCC amount, over Tk six crore was paid to the construction firms for the work of the project and the rest was transferred to the account of LGED, Rangpur following an order issued by the higher authorities, he added.
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