Three officials of Water Development Board (WDB) and another of Water Resources Ministry confessed to their negligence in construction of embankments in haor areas of the country.
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Director General Md Munir Chowdhury on Thursday said four government officials, during interrogation, primarily confessed to their negligence in the project at the head office of the Anti-Corruption watchdog over construction of embankments in low-lying areas called haor region.
The four officials are: Jahangir Kabir, director general of BWDB, Abdul Hye Baki, additional director general, Harunur Rashid, superintendent engineer and Kholilur Rahman, joint secretary of Water Resource Ministry.
An ACC team, led by its director general Md Munir Chowdhury, quizzed the officials for nearly two-and-half hours from around at 12:30pm till 2:50pm, said ACC spokesperson Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, after coming out of the office. "The officials though admitted their negligence in construction of the embankment but denied the corruption allegation," Md Munir Chowdhury briefed journalists after questioning.
Recently, flash floods washed away crops on thousands of hectares of land in the haor areas of Sunamganj, Sylhet, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Kishoreganj, Netrakona and Brahmanbaria.
There are allegations that BWDB engineers showed negligence in their duties and indulged in corruption while constructing and reconstructing embankments in the country's haor region.
Many of the dams breached during the recent flash flood, damaging huge crops and fish in the areas.
The ACC is investigating to find out whether there were any irregularities or corruption in building and mending embankments in the haor belt.
On May 2, three engineers of the Water Development Board were suspended over allegations of corruption in building and repairing embankments in the haor region.
