Former Chief Secretary Najibur Rahman was active in covering up his irregularities and corruption. During his transfer from Chairman of National Board of Revenue (NBR) to Principal Secretary to former Prime Minister, he misused his power and took some important documents, files with him. These included source money files. Therefore, NBR does not have the exact information about how much money he has misappropriated as source money during his tenure. However, officials working in the Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) and Customs Intelligence at that time believed that the amount of source money would be Tk 25-30 crores.
Source money is usually given to the correspondent for receiving tax evasion complaints and uncovering tax evasion based on that news. Every year a portion of NBR expenditure is earmarked for source money. While all other expenses are audited, source money expenditure is not audited. CIC source money is executed from NBR’s board administration wing and customs intelligence source money from the budget of customs intelligence. A search of the source money file for the period 2015-18 in these two offices did not find it.
According to the investigation, Najibur Rahman became the Director General of Customs Intelligence after taking charge as the Chief Secretary. Sahidul Islam. On April 3, 2018, he asked the officer who served as Director General of Customs Intelligence about the file and register of source money. After Dudfa gave the letter, the previous director general said in a letter that no information related to source money is auditable. Since the amount allocated in this regard is not auditable, it is not mandatory to maintain any accounts and register. In the letter, the previous director general (in charge during Najibur Rahman’s tenure) mentioned that intelligence information is highly confidential and all communications with sources are sensitive. The question of storing any official document related to their information and asking for its continuous source does not come up as the issue of security is involved. It is also not in compliance with Audit Manual, Right to Information Act and other departmental practices.
The letter of the two commissioners escalated the matter to the Board of Revenue. The NBR later wrote to the previous director general that the RTI Act did not empower any head of department to take personal custody of government records and registers when he was transferred from one department to another. Even in the Secretariat guidelines, the head of the department is not empowered to carry the official documents of the previous department while transferring from one department to another department. All government documents and registrars will be kept in the respective offices, this is the provision. In view of this, he was ordered to return all the documents and registrar to the customs intelligence within 3 days.
It has been found that a cold war started between the two commissioners regarding source money. Later, under the pressure of the then Chief Secretary Najibur Rahman working in the Prime Minister’s Office, NBR Chairman Mosharraf Hossain Bhaniya settled the matter and Dr. He instructed Sahidul not to look further into the file. That file was later not found.
It is said that after talking to the officers and employees of the Board administration branch, many old files disappeared during the transfer of revenue building from Segunbagicha in 2023. And after talking with the people working in these two branches of Najibur Rahman, it is known that before being appointed as Chief Secretary, Najibur Rahman had summoned the files related to source money through the then PS while leaving the office. The then DGE explained all the files to him.
The investigation revealed that Najibur Rahman wrote a book named ‘Protocol Management and International Etiquette’ to legitimize source money loot. The then CIC DG Bellal Uddin advised him. In total 808 offices including tax zones, ranges and circles under NBR and in total 596 offices of VAT and customs department forced officials-employees to buy at least 10 books each. Which is overseen by Bellal Uddin. Many Income Tax and Customs Commissioners bought Najibur Rahman’s books from government funds to get compliance. In this process, he legalized 8 crore rupees for the book sale honor. After that, he also sold books written by his wife to NBR officials and employees in the same manner.
On the condition of anonymity, an official of NBR described the experience and said that the main tool to fulfill Najibur Rahman’s demands and forms was the VAT online project. With the help of this project, he traveled to America with his family. Because of this, the vendor organization canceled the training program in Vietnam for hundreds of officers. Almost every evening, at least 10 breakfast packets were sent from Purvani Hotel in Motijheel to the office and home with the project money. Each of which costs 800 rupees. In the afternoon, Kasturi used to go to office and home for food. Food was brought from Sonargaon Hotel during festivals and that food was also sent home. The then project director did not even dare to protest about this irregularity out of fear. He claimed that these expenses are kept in the file of the project.
After the arrest of Najibur Rahman, many officials have started speaking out against his injustice, irregularities and corruption. Several officials told Yugantar that many qualified officials were not promoted at the right time due to Najibur Rahman’s lack of leadership. Withhold the promotion file. However, despite the specific adverse comments of the former finance minister in the ACR of the then Director General of CIC, he exerted influence to promote him in the SSB meeting. In many cases the ACR of many officers was sent only forwarding (reading letter) without sending it to the Finance Minister. Later, non-availability of ACRs of those officers led to unnecessary complications in promotion and preservation of service records. Many honest and competent officials make adverse comments on ACR at will. As a result, despite being qualified, these officers were denied promotion due to adverse comments. Moreover, he initiated a disciplinary departmental case to dismiss many officials for revealing incompetence in Najibur’s formayesh khat.
