WASA MD Taksim accused of Tk 1.32b embezzlement

8 others also involved

Court Correspondent: Taksim A Khan, the managing director of Dhaka WASA, and eight others are facing charges of embezzling Tk 1.32 billion from the employees’ co-operative society.
The society’s Secretary Shahab Uddin Sarkar filed a complaint against them in court yesterday, according to the plaintiff’s lawyer Munzur Alam.
Metropolitan Magistrate Ashek Imam heard the plaintiff’s statement and has kept an order on the matter pending, said Munzur.
Dhaka WASA Engineer Sharmin Haque Amir, former revenue inspector Mia Md Mizanur Rahman, engineer Md Aktaruzzaman, Revenue Inspector Zakir Hossain, Engineer Badrul Alam have also been accused along with Janata Bank’s former DGM Shyamal Biswas, Deputy Secretary Sheikh Enayet Ullah and Deputy Chief Accounting Officer Salekur Rahman.
According to the plaintiff, the Dhaka WASA Employees Multipurpose Cooperative Society received Tk 996.5 million between Jul 16, 2017 and Jun 30, 2018 from the water authority as commission for their revenue collection work. And from 2016 to 2019, the association received Tk 341.8 million for the same work.
Of this, Tk 17.9 million was deposited to the association’s account from 2016 to 2017 fiscal years, he said. Citing the Department of Cooperatives’ audit report, the case alleges that the remaining Tk 1.32 billion was embezzled from six banks by various cheques.
The plaintiff further alleges that the accused ‘stole’ assets worth around Tk 2 billion from the association.
Taksim has been the MD of Dhaka WASA since 2009. His term has been extended a total of six times since his appointment. However, he could not be reached for comment.