The Crime Desk: The Anti-Corruption Commission (EC) has begun investigating irregularities in the purchase of electronic voting machines (EVMs). For this, the ACC has summoned six officials of the then EC. The matter has been revealed from a letter signed by ACC Assistant Director and Head of the Investigation Team Md. Rakibul Hayat.
The letter states that former Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda and others are accused of abusing power, various irregularities and violating government financial regulations, accepting projects without a survey and without a tender, causing a loss of about Tk 3,172 crore to the government by purchasing 150,000 low-quality electronic voting machines (EVMs) at a price 10 times higher than the market price.
For this, it is necessary to take statements from EC Secretariat Deputy Head Md. Saiful Haque Chowdhury, Assistant Head Md. Mahfuzul Haque, EC Idea Project IT System Consultant AHM Abdur Rahim Khan, Deputy Secretary (Ch.Da) Farhad Hossain, System Analyst Farzana Akhtar and then Senior Maintenance Engineer Muhammad Ashraf Hossain. The letter has asked the six officials to appear at the Anti-Corruption Commission’s head office next Wednesday and give their statements regarding the allegations.
It is worth noting that the previous Huda Commission had bought those machines in a hurry before the 11th National Parliament election in 2018. Although the machines were used to a limited extent in that election. The government recently canceled the project as more than half of the machines were damaged.
