Bangladesh Bank postpones awards ceremony after medals found with inferior quality gold

Bangladesh Bank has postponed a ceremony to distribute gold medals to its best-performing officials after it found that gold used in the medals is inferior in quality.

The medals were supposed to be made from 22-carat gold but a revelation that those were made with 21-carat gold has prompted the organisers to postpone the awards ceremony.

Governor Fazle Kabir has formed a committee headed by Deputy Governor SK Sur Chowdhury to investigate if any official were involved in fiddling with the quality of the medals or negligence of duties in supervising the matter.

Earlier, the use of poor quality or lesser amount of gold was detected in making the crests for honouring Bangladesh's foreign friends during Liberation War.

Governor Kabir was scheduled to garland 22 meritorious officials of the bank with gold medals at a ceremony at the central bank's headquarters at 11am on Wednesday.

But before the programme, it was found that the medals are of 21 carat gold, instead of 22 carat, as specified by the bank's board of directors. When the governor came to know of it, he postponed the programme and formed the investigation committee.

Deputy Governor Sur told bdnews24.com that there was 'actually no financial irregularity' in making the medals.

He said the same amount of money, allocated for 22-carat medals, was spent on making the 21-carat gold medals.

"The medals were supposed to weigh 12 grams each, but now they weigh around 13 grams each," he said.

He said he would investigate whether any official neglected their duty.

The central bank's Expenditure Management Department was tasked with the job to make the medals.