Chinese company offers Tk 5m bribe

Chinese contractors China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd. offered a Tk 5 million bribe to the road transport and highways division (RTHD) secretary Nazrul Islam. When he took up office of secretary on 15 October, the company sent him they money in foreign currency, according to the finance minister.

Nazrul Islam informed the higher authorities, including the road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader, of the matter. The ministry then forwarded the money along with a letter, to the Chinese embassy in Dhaka.

China Harbour was to be awarded the four-lane upgrade project of Dhaka-Sylhet Highway with the Chinese government providing the funds. A bid was underway for construction of the 226 km four-lane highway.

With this bribe offer, the government instantly suspended the bidding and blacklisted China Harbour.

The government has now decided to implement the project on its own funding.

This pay-off proposal was first disclosed to the media on Monday by finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith at a Bangladesh Development Forum meeting. He said, “The Chinese company openly offered the bribe.”

Again, on Tuesday after the finance minister’s meeting with World Bank vice president Annette Dixon at the secretariat, journalists asked about the fate of other projects undertaken by China Harbour in Bangladesh. Muhith replied, ‘A blacklist is a blacklist. The company had already been awarded the contract without bribes. It might have offered the money for future favours.” 

Nazrul Islam told Prothom Alo that the top level of the government was aware of the bribe offer.

Earlier on 9 October the road transport and highways division signed a preliminary agreement with the company, as the Chinese government had to implement it on a government-to-government basis. The road transport and highways division committee negotiated for about a year, fixing the project cost as Tk 140 billion. China Harbour turned the offer down. Then after the bribe offer, negotiations almost came to a halt in November. 

The road transport and highways division drafted two project proposals for self funding with the estimated cost Tk 126 billion. Another Tk 50 billion budget project has been undertaken for land acquisition and power connections.

During Chinese president Xi Jinping’s tour in 2016, an agreement was signed for 26 projects of 21.50 billion dollars. The Dhaka-Sylhet highway four-lane project was one of these with a budget of Tk 1.60 billion. The Chinese government selected China Harbour Engineering Company for the job.