Shipping Minister Shajahan backed chief engineer arrested on bribery charges

A parliamentary watchdog recommended action against the recently arrested chief engineer of the Department of Shipping AKM Fakhrul Islam a year ago, but the ministry took none.

Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan had thrown his weight at the time behind the engineer, according to the minutes of a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry. Fakhrul was later arrested on bribery charges.

The minister did not take bdnews24.com phone calls for comments on the issue.

The Anti-Corruption Commission said its officials caught Fakhrul, the chief engineer and surveyor of the shipping department, with Tk 500,000 he had taken in bribe to approve a ship's design on July 17.

Three days later, the parliamentary committee again discussed the allegations of irregularity that had surfaced against Fakhrul nearly a year ago. The government suspended him on Aug 2.

A copy of the minutes of the meeting  is with bdnews24.com.

In that meeting, panel chief Rafiqul Islam MP referred to another meeting held in August last year and said the allegations against Fakhrul came to the fore at the time.

Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan (File Photo)

The committee then recommended his removal, but the ministry refused to act.

In the meeting last year, Shipping Minister Khan argued that there were only four surveyors for around 10,000 ships. "Who will conduct the survey if we sack him?" he asked.

Rafiqul in last month's meeting expressed ire over the issue.

"The shipping ministry's reputation would not have been damaged had steps been taken after investigating the allegations against surveyor Fakhrul at that time," the MP said, according to the minutes of the meeting.

After Thursday's meeting, Rafiqul told bdnews24.com: "It was discussed in the previous meeting. I said what I had to at that meeting. We didn't discuss it today."

A shipping ministry official said the July 20 meeting saw a lot of heated arguments.

"Most of the committee members blamed the ministry for not heeding to the previous corruption allegations against surveyor Fakhrul Islam," he said.

He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media on the issue.