DHAKA, 9 June 2004 — Bangladesh has decided not to pay 310 million taka ($5 million) in fines and compensation ordered by a Dutch court for canceling a controversial deal with a Netherlands-based firm.
The Dutch court judgment was “one-sided and unjust,” the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs said at a meeting in Dhaka where it asked the education, foreign and law ministries as well as the Economic Relations Division to prepare a position paper, officials said yesterday.
The Finance Ministry had contracted Tulip Computers International DV to supply 10,388 computers to Bangladesh under an Education Ministry project.
The government would try to negotiate an out-of-court settlement with the Amsterdam-based company.
Following the court order, Dutch authorities warned they could confiscate airliners and ships operating under the Bangladeshi flag anywhere in the European Union unless the compensation was paid.
“The question of giving compensation as per a one-sided judgment does not arise,” the Cabinet Committee chief, Finance and Planning Minister M. Saifur Rahman, told journalists after the meeting.
The committee ordered an inquiry into how the Economic Relations Division of the Finance Ministry signed the agreement with the Dutch government without Education Ministry consent, sources said. The Cabinet Committee too was apparently ignored in the process.
Bangladesh was to receive a grant of 499.5 million taka ($8 million) to introduce computer courses at secondary and higher secondary levels under the project.
“We didn’t get the claimed computers, nor did (the Dutch government) give us money. And we’ve never heard of such a judgment before — it’s one-sided,” Saif said.
Sources at the meeting said Cabinet Secretary Saadat Hossain, who was secretary of the primary and mass education division at that time, questioned how ERD could sign an agreement with such “harsh” conditions despite “reservations” from the ministry concerned.
He pointed out that the deal was signed on a Friday, a weekend holiday in Bangladesh, in 2000. Doubts were raised over then ERD secretary Moshiur Rahman for showing “so much interest” in completing the agreement, sources said.
