‘Top contractors’ of roads resort to forgery

Three of the top five contractor firms that get most of the works of Roads and Highways Department (RHD) have been found to be involved with fraudulence. Investigations by the RHD revealed that they had forged documents to get new contracts. Further investigation is underway against the two.

RHD sources said it found out fraudulence of 26 contractors. Six of these including three top contractors were banned for various terms.

Prothom Alo published a report titled ‘Five companies get 51 pc of the contracts’ on 14 October last year. A lawyer filed a writ in the High Court on 6 November last year regarding award of most of the work to a few contractors. RHD on 19 November formed the investigation committee as per the order of the court.

A two-member probe committee headed by RHD’s additional chief engineer AKM Rezaul Karim submitted its report in January and action against the contractors started from February.

Syed Moinul Hasan, chief engineer of RHD, told Prothom Alo that they have investigated and found some fraudulence of documents. Some measures have already been taken. Further verification is underway. Action will be taken against those who are found guilty of cheating.

RHD sources said the 26 contractors found guilty control over 90 per cent work of roads. However, the number of contractors that work on roads is around 1,100.

There are several types of forgery including submitting fake work experience certificates, showing higher valuation of work, showing documents of completion of work on time despite failing to meet deadlines, submitting same document repeatedly in a single tender and submitting fake document of joint venture.

Some firms have submitted certificates of experience of working with Water Development Board (WDB), Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), Public Works Department, Bangladesh Railway and different other government bodies. Some of these certificates were found to be fake.

Prothom Alo report revealed that five companies that got 51 per cent of the contracts of the RHD in the 2022-23 fiscal are Abed Mansur Construction Limited, Muhammad Aminul Haque Private Limited, Mozahar Enterprise Limited, Md Mahfuz Khan Limited and Hasan Techno Builders Limited.

Executive engineer of Satkhira in January 2022 and of Bagerhat in February that year wrote two letters to higher officials complaining about the forgery of Abed Monsur Construction. The letters alleged that the firm submitted 56 fake certificates.

According to Tenderers Database Management System (TDMS), a unique database for evaluation of tenders, Abed Monsur Construction was accorded 3100 works of RHD in the last five years. Valuation of these works amount to around Tk 5 billion. They were awarded works mostly in Dhaka region.

None from Abed Monsur Construction was available for comment on the fraudulence.  RHD sources said the firm has been banned for two years. The firm would not get any contract in this period.

Hasan Techno is another contractor that got works by RHD. It was given over 500 works worth around Tk 25 billion. Investigation revealed Hasan Techno also submitted various counterfeit documents to get work. For example, Hasan Techno showed bills of Tk 1.2 billion in four projects in Brahmanbaria to get another tender. But it did not do these works.

Hasan Techno has been slapped with a two-year ban. The firm’s owner Nazmul Hasan told Prothom Alo on Saturday that he had made minor mistakes. He claimed the works where he took part jointly caused him trouble as partners such as Abed Monsur Construction and others submitted fake documents during joint work.

Another top contract of RHD, Mozahar Enterprise, has been banned till next June. It was awarded around 1,220 contracts worth around Tk 30 billion. Apart from these, two firms named M/S Saleh Ahmed and Jaman Enterprise were banned for two years and Masud Hightech Engineering was banned till next June.

M/S Saleh Ahmed’s owner Saleh Ahmed told Prothom Alo on Saturday that his firm did not make any mistake. His firm did some work jointly with Abed Monsur and Hasan Techno where these firms’ submitted forged documents. Saleh Ahemd claimed his firm paid the price for the mistakes of these two farms.

RHD sources said, further investigation is being done on 20 other firms including Aminul Haque, Md Moinuddin (Banshi), Delowar Hossain, Mahfuz Khan Limited, Rana Builders and National Development Engineers.

Ruling party men forced general contractors to submit tend in the past. So, the government launched the National e-Government Procurement (e-GP) system in 2011 to stop forceful tender submission, as well as to submit tender online to ensure competition. The e-GP runs on two databases -- TDMS (Tenderers Database Management System) and TCiS (Tender and Contract Information System) where all documents relating to calling and awarding of tenders by RHD, as well as documents submitted by the contractors since 2017, remain stored.

According to the RHD sources, the responsibility of contractors is to submit necessary documents at TDMS while the responsibility of the respective RHD office is to approve the documents and store these.

Fake documents should have been identified during the tender evaluation process, but that did not happen, and contractors took advantage of this. Contractors who were responsible started to face bans, but officials ‘who abated in this fraudulence’ are yet to face action.

Road Transport and Highways Division secretary ABM Amin Ullah Nuri told Prtohom Alo everyone including officials and contractors concerned will be brought to book, but they have to wait a little longer.

An analysis of tenders called after the launch of the e-GP system shows most of these tenders were floated under the open tendering method (OTM), in which the respective authorities fix an estimated budget before calling a tender and if contractors propose more or less than 10 per cent of the budget, then the authorities cancel the tender.

According to the RHD sources, contractors are not supposed to know about the estimated budget, it becomes a practice in the RHD to inform contractors about the estimated budget beforehand whereas all contractors submit tender proposing 10 per cent less than the estimated budget, resulting in a similar budget by all the tender participants. In this circumstance, the CPTU introduced the past performance evaluation matrix with a marking system of up to 300 to award the tender. Firms get marks based on the budget amount of projects completed as well as the number of ongoing projects. As a result, contractor firms forged documents to show more number of projects.

A responsible official at RHD told Prothom Alo on condition of anonymity that contractors who got involved in fraudulence have started lobbying to avoid the ban claiming that if contractors face actions, work on roads would stall, and people will suffer during Eid-ul-Fitr and rainy season.

Several RHD officials, however, opined situation of roads is acceptable across the country, and it would be a problem to ban several contractors since there are lots of other firms.

The RHD is responsible for the construction and maintenance of highways and district roads across the country. The agency got an allocation of Tk 273 billion including development and non-development budget in the 2022-23 fiscal. The RHD annually calls tenders of at least Tk 50 billion excluding ongoing projects, land acquisition and other expenditures.

Transparency International Bangladesh executive director Iftekharuzzaman told Prothom Alo contractors carried out the fraudulence in nexus with the officials. Contractors, as well as officials and employees of RHD must be tried, or else fraudulence will not stop.