DHAKA, 19 June 2005 — Bangladesh’s State Minister for Energy A.K.M. Mosharraf Hossain yesterday tendered his resignation on personal grounds, sources said.
The sources said his resignation letter was submitted to President Dr. Iajuddin Ahmed, against the backdrop of a reported car scandal in which a Canadian firm Niko Resources gifted him a luxurious car worth 8.5 million taka in order to scuttle a high-level investigation into blowout of a gas-field in Bangladesh due to its negligence.
The president accepted his resignation.
Sources said Prime Minister Khaleda Zia earlier asked Mosharraf to resign.
This is for the first time in the last three years of Khaleda’s government that a minister resigned over a scandal.
Earlier in the day, Mosharraf returned from a trip that took him to Canada and the United States. The Tengratila blowout came in the limelight following reports that Niko had given Mosharraf an expensive car in May through the Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company.
But the Energy Division maintained that Niko had given the car to BAPEX, which is its joint-venture partner for the Tengratila gas field.
Petrobangla, the mother organization of BAPEX, gave the car to the minister.
The minister justified use of the car saying that the vehicle Toyota Land Cruiser was not gifted to him, rather he got it through proper channel. The minister denied taking vehicle from Niko.
“I am not the owner of this car, BAPEX (Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration Company), a company under my ministry, is the owner of this car. I was using a Land Cruiser since last three-and-half years. As that vehicle became old, I took this new one,” he said.
