Business leaders informed the Anti-Corruption Commission on Wednesday that they were compelled to bribe government officials as ‘speed money’ to have their work done.
They raised the allegation while taking part in a discussion titled ‘Ensuring transparent and accountable public service for investment and business friendly environment in Bangladesh’ at the ACC head office.
Bangladesh Investment Development Authority and ACC jointly organised the programme.
Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry director Hasina Newaaz said that the businessmen were facing obstacles in various steps and ‘speed money’ is a part of these problems.
She said that ‘speed money’ was a common term in the business community as without paying it, investors often face little to no cooperation from government officials.

Speed money’ is a must to get work done

In her intervention, the ACC chairman Iqbal Mahmood said that the ACC recommended the government to introduce provision of compensation by the officials responsible if investors face losses due to negligence from government officials. ‘We did not want to recognise “speed money”,’ he said adding that there was no way to take any additional facility from service-seekers.
He also asked the businessmen to give VAT and tax properly, otherwise their income would be attributed as unearned income and it would be recovered by the concerned authority as illegal wealth.
He said there was allegation against the businessmen for being involved in irregularities through creation of back-to-back letter of credits, over invoicing and under invoicing.
Agreeing with ACC chairman, Bangladesh-Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Syed Moazzam Hossain said that they were receiving complaints that irregularities through under invoicing and over invoicing was rampant.

He recommended the ACC chairman to look for the quantity of bureaucrats who have twin citizenship.
The enterprise leaders also advised the ACC chairman to make an settlement between business neighborhood establishments and ACC in a bid to curb corruption.
BIDA chairman Kazi M Aminul Islam said that his company needs to company Bangladesh for moral commercial enterprise and funding and this technique would grow to be simpler if the country will become ‘corruption-free’.
Among others, Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry director Selim Akhter Khan, Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry secretary popular Farooq Ahmed, ACC secretary M Shamsul Arefin and director usual M Zafar Iqbal spoke at the programme.