Trio took Tk 40 lakh additional fuel bill

Former speaker Jamiruddin Sircar, his deputy Akhtar Hamid Siddiqui and former chief whip Khandaker Delwar Hossain took over Tk 40 lakh as fuel bills in addition to their fuel allowances during the tenure of the last parliament.According to a report prepared by the transport pool of Parliament Secretariat, Sircar drew Tk 7.73 lakh and Akhtar Hamid Tk 15.71 lakh as additional fuel bills for two Pajeros during 2004-2008 while Delwar drew Tk 16.68 lakh for a microbus during 2001-2006, sources in the secretariat said.Fuel bills for the Pajeros were also increased to 20 litres a day from 10 litres in 2005, the sources said.The three were entitled to use two vehicles each for official purpose and money for around 40 litres of fuel daily. They were also entitled to get fuel bills for trips outside Dhaka.Another document shows that Tk 4.50 lakh was allocated in 2004-05 fiscal year for the maintenance of the vehicles used by Sircar and Akhtar Hamid at that time. But the amount was increased to Tk 14.50 lakh following demands from their offices.The additional money was provided from other sectors in the budget for Parliament Secretariat, officials said. They, however, could not give the details of the expenditures.The transport pool of Parliament Secretariat has recently submitted the report to a parliamentary sub-committee led by Brig Gen (retd) SK Bakr. The sub-committee formed by the all-party parliamentary probe body is probing allegations of corruption in Parliament Secretariat and has started gathering information on transport expenditures during the last parliament.When contacted, Bakr, also a lawmaker of the ruling Awami League, told The Daily Star that they are yet to collect all the information. "So far we have examined a number of documents and we detected anomalies in the expenditures," he said.Bakr said he would submit the findings to the main probe body.He has already submitted a probe report to the main committee, asking it to recover Tk 35 lakh from Sircar, Akhtar Hamid and Delwar, which they took as medical bills illegally.Both Sircar and Delwar have refuted the allegations and questioned the authority of the probe body to investigate the alleged corruption against them. Akhtar Hamid is now behind bars.