The probe committee formed to investigate the quality of headphones and the overall sound system in the Jatiya Sangsad (Parliament) has found gross irregularities repairs the system done by the contractor, including withdrawn money against without work.
A three-member probe committee has been formed to investigate the sound system disruption that occurred during the maiden session of the 13th Parliament, under the leadership of the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Parliament on March 28 and asked to submit its report on April 3.
Officials at the Parliament Secretariat said that after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in a student uprising, thousands of people entered the National Parliament building. During that time, they vandalized almost all the rooms in the 9-story building, including the session hall, the oath-taking room, and the Prime Minister's office, the deputy leader of parliament, the speaker, the deputy speaker, the chief whip and the whips' rooms. The sound system of the session hall, several seats and tables where MPs sat, as well as the microphones on the tables, were broken.
However, the Public Works Department completed the repair work of the Simultaneous Interpretation System (SIS) and the sound system of the session hall before the 13th National Parliament elections.
Unfortunately, the inaugural sitting of the 13th Parliament on March 12 had to be suspended due to malfunctioning audio equipment. The same problem occurred last Sunday as well. The parliament was adjourned for 40 minutes that day due to the problem with the sound system. Expressing strong anger and dissatisfaction over this, Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmed has ordered to replace the entire sound system and take action against those involved in its renovation work.
Later it was suspended several times, later the Chief Whip Nurul Islam said the issue was discussed in detail and an inquiry committee has been formed under the leadership of the Sergeant-at-Arms of Parliament. He added that the committee will look into two key aspects whether any sabotage was involved and what technical problems caused the disruption, along with recommendations for solutions.
"When the tender was called, Amanat Enterprise offered to do the work for Tk 3.8 million and CTL offered to do it for Tk 4.1 million, and the work order was given to Amanat Enterprise as the lowest bidder. It found that Amanat Enterprise had taken the bills without doing the work properly. Apart from this, the work done on the residences of the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Chief Whip and Whips was done in the name of Amanat Enterprise, but the company did not do it. There are also allegations that although the work worth about three crore taka was shown to have been completed, the work was not done according to the tender specifications," a senior official of the Parliament Secretariat told Daily Observer.
The work order for the renovation was given to Amanat Enterprise, the preferred contractor of Anwar Hossain, Executive Engineer of Public Works EM Division-7, in charge of the Parliament Building area.
However, even though this company took the work order, they did the work by giving it to the contractor company CTL, which is responsible for the maintenance of SIS. But since they did not work properly and repaired it with patches, questions had already been raised about its efficiency. However, claiming that there was no irregularity in the work, Executive Engineer Anwar Hossain said that the sound system has been renovated properly as per the work order.
He said that the repairs were made without installing a new system to save the state money. Since the connection wire from one microphone to another was in good condition, it was not changed during the repairs. However, when the session began, some wires were found to be faulty, causing the entire sound system to go out of order twice. After Sunday's incident, it was fixed again and there was no problem the next day. He claimed that there would be no problem even if a new sound system is not installed now. The current sound system is fine.
An official of the organization said that it would have cost about 20 crore taka to install a new SIS including a sound system. However, due to budget constraints, only 4 crore taka was spent on renovating it instead of installing a new one.
Several officials of the Parliament Secretariat said that the responsibility of supervising whether the sound system of an important place like the Parliament Chamber was being repaired properly rested with the Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, the Public Works Secretary, the Parliament Secretary and the Legal Advisor of the Parliament in the absence of the Speaker, Asif Nazrul.
As a result, the responsibility for the sound system scandal also lies with them. A team from the Public Works Department, the institution responsible for the repair and maintenance of the National Parliament, including Chief Engineer Khalequzzaman Chowdhury and Additional Chief Engineer of the EM Zone Ashraful Haque, met the Speaker in the National Parliament on Monday and informed him about the entire issue of repairing the sound system.
The investigation committee formed in this regard is also working to identify the accused. Those concerned said that after transferring Public Works EM Division-7 Executive Engineer Anwar Hossain, who was involved in the sound system scandal, the process of taking action against several other engineers involved has begun. At the same time, action will also be taken against Amanat Enterprise, the company that received the work order to repair the sound system.
Apart from this, it is also being investigated whether there is negligence on the part of CTL, the organization responsible for maintaining the Simultaneous Interpretation System (SIS) and the sound system of the session hall. According to the concerned, CTL is paid a huge service charge every year for maintenance. On the other hand, after repeated outages and several closures of parliament activities, it has been decided to completely replace the sound system of the parliament hall. According to the concerned, preparations are underway to install a new sound system in May before the budget session. As a result, 4 crore taka is being wasted on repairing the sound system.
