ACC prosecutes United Hospital MD, DCC ex-commissioner for Tk 215 million 'tax dodge'

The Anti-Corruption Commission or ACC has prosecuted United Hospital Managing Director Faridur Rahman Khan and former Dhaka City Corporation commissioner Rahima Begum on charges of dodging around Tk 215 million in taxes.

ACC Deputy Director Muhammad Mahbubul Alam started the case at Gulshan Police Station on Thursday, the commission’s spokesperson Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya told bdnews24.com.

He said Faridur and Rahima stand accused of embezzling the money by evading holding tax since the hospital’s launch in Gulshan from 2006 to 2011.

According to the case dossier, the hospital started operations in an eight-storey building, including its basement, as ‘Continental Hospital’ at road 71 of Gulshan-2 Residential Area.

It was renamed United Hospital Limited in 2007, but it is still named ‘Continental Hospital’ in city corporation papers.

The then undivided city corporation fixed over Tk 8.81 million as quarterly holding tax for the hospital from 2006 and sent a notice asking it to pay up on Aug 26, 2007.

The United Hospital authorities challenged the notice at the city corporation’s Assessment Review Board instead of paying the taxes.

MA Kayum, the then commissioner of ward 21 of the city corporation, was heading the board at the time with former commissioner Rahima Begum, engineer Kazi Zahirul Azam and advocate Malek Molla as its members.     

The ACC alleges Rahima, in the absence of the ARB chairman and the two other members of the board, revised the hospital’s quarterly holding tax down to around Tk 7.5 million in 2009.

The hospital, however, did not pay up the holding tax even after getting an abatement of Tk 1.3 million per quarter.

If it did not get the reprieve, the hospital would have to pay the city corporation around Tk 215 million in holding taxes from 2006 to 2011.

United Hospital MD Faridur and former commissioner Rahima ‘deliberately in collusion with each other’ evaded the taxes 'in a criminal breach of trust', which is a punishable offence, the ACC states in the case.         

bdnews24.com failed to reach Faridur or Rahima for their comments on the case immediately.