Despite having various administrative limitations, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is going to start enquiry against 34 more high profile corruption suspects including BNP Senior Joint Secretary General and former prime minister Khaleda Zia's son Tarique Rahman. The 34 are from the second government list of 50 high profile corruption suspects published in the media in the second week of March, said ACC Commissioner Habibur Rahman.
Meanwhile, the commission's activities are being hampered because of shortage of manpower. The ACC commissioner said they could not yet file cases against 11 persons from its first list of 50 corruption suspects due to the shortage of investigation officers. However, Habib told journalists yesterday that despite the crisis the commission will assign 34 investigation officers (IO) to start enquiry against the 34 corruption suspects whose names he declined to reveal. He also did not say clearly why 16 others on the list have been dropped and what criterion was followed in choosing the 34 for enquiry.
ACC sources said the commission finalised the 34 persons including Tarique Rahman. ACC Secretary Delwar Hossain on February 18 officially published the names of 50 corruption suspects and directed them to submit their wealth statements within 72 hours. Of them 35 submitted their wealth statements within the ACC-stipulated time while a few others submitted theirs obtaining High Court order. The ACC so far filed graft cases against 13 of the 35 corruption suspects as it found mismatches between their wealth statements and actual properties. The ACC commissioner said, "We could have filed more cases by this time if we had required number of investigation officers." |