The Anti-Corruption Commission on Tuesday filed a case against Waheeda Rahman Chowdhury, former commissioner of National Board of Revenue, on charges of giving illegal benefits of Tk 153 crore to four mobile operator companies.
ACC Assistant Director Shah Alam Sheikh filed the case with its integrated district office in Dhaka 1, said ACC Secretary Khorsheda Yasmeen.
According to the case statement, Tk 153 crore interest was imposed on four mobile operator companies between 2011 and 2019 under the VAT Act for failing to pay VAT timely.
ACC Secretary Khorsheda Yasmeen disclosed this to the media in a press conference at the ACCs headquarters at Segunbagicha.
The case statement said Waheeda Rahman illegally waived a total of Tk 1,520,089,390 unpaid interest of four mobile phone operators - Grameenphone, Robi, Banglalink and Airtel.
Out of this amount, benefit of Tk 58.64 crore was given illegally to Grameen Phone, Tk 57.88 crore of Banglalink, Tk 14.94 crore of Robi and benefit of Tk 20.53 crore was given illegally to Airtel.
However, former VAT commissioner Waheeda Rahman Chowdhury waived the interests of the mobile operator companies illegally and she gave this facility on her own decision and abusing power.
In the briefing, the ACC Secretary said that the former commissioner of NBR Waheeda Rahman misused her power and gave this facility to four mobile operators in a single decision. It has caused financial loss to the government.
When asked whether the mobile companies took this advantage by bribing the former commissioner or not, the ACC Secretary said that these matters would come out in the investigation.
