Gold rush and Biman’s nose dive

Biman’s chairman retired Air Vice Marshall Jalaluddin remains virtually isolated from the media after the breaking of the news and arrest of five persons including three senior Biman’s officials for their long time involvement in gold smuggling using the national carrier and bypassing the airport security.

Even the Civil Aviation Minister Rashed Khan Menon told Parliament last week that he had expected the chairman would brief him on the development but he didn’t. He is keeping himself informed of the unfolding situation now through the secretary of the Civil Aviation Ministry who is also a member of Biman’s board of directors.

The minister feels bad that the Biman’s Chairman is distancing from him. Other Biman officials are also avoiding him, the minister said.

This is because as some sources said the chairman is a personal nominee of the Prime Minister and only she can fire him from the job. Biman’s chairman therefore does not care about the ministers’ authorities so long as the Prime Minister is supporting him.

But question now arises as to why the chairman is keeping mum when the entire Biman is collapsing from global gold rush scandals in which over 62 Biman officials have so far been identified in gold hauling syndicate.

The question is how the chairman could fail over the past six years to detect the otherwise highly publicized cases of gold hauling through the airport using Biman as a carrier for illegal trafficking.

The disclosure that the ring leader of the airport based gold smuggling is none but his own ‘godson’ Mahmudul Haque Polash made the chairman the natural suspect. The godson emerged as a terror at the airport in recent years and was using the cover of a supply contractor to run the illegal trafficking.

He was free to move to the carriers and every soft spot; there was nothing like security check up for him. Coming from the chairman’s locality in the Feni and having close ties, all would salute him at the airport for fear of losing job or earning his wraths.

His wife is also a Biman air hostess and JP Parliament member Feroze Rashid told the Parliament last week that she was using Business Class facilities while in the air. Sources claim that Biman’s chairman was aware of every development; nothing happened without his knowledge and that he may be a beneficiary of the illegal gold trafficking.

Official reports said Polash was instrumental to recruiting 160 cabin crews and realized Tk 10 lakh from each candidate to get them selected in their job. The chairman, however, is keeping out of contact and not responding to quarries against all those allegations from the press.

Moinuddin Khan Badal, a ruling party MP while discussing the issue in  Parliament said Biman’s chairman Jamaluddin has become a ‘super citizen’ beyond accountability to the government. He said three ministers were changed at the civil aviation ministry over the past several years but Jamaluddin remained untouched.

He said a Parliamentary sub-committee on Civil Aviation Ministry under the 9th Parliament carried out a probe on Biman’s activities and found that the chairman is ‘incapable’ of runing the organization. Besides, he is involved in various irregularities and corruptions including fixing business matters like taking lease of aircrafts, important procurements and planning aviation routes.

Another MP Feroze Rashid called him a ‘thief’ and wondered why the government had neither published the Parliamentary Sub-committee report nor took action against him. Former Civil Aviation Minister GM Qadir told a TV talk show that when he was in the government ‘the ministry tried to perform the responsibilities for hiring and firing. But it could not do so for different reasons.’

He said, ‘the ministry had no control over Biman, and there was no accountability in the national carrier. The issue was taken up with the prime minister who holds the authority to appoint or sack the Biman chairman and board members. But the PM didn’t make any change in the Biman’s board and that may be because she still had faith in the chairman and the board members.’

News reports were so far confined to highlighting smaller groups and individuals behind the gold trafficking. Detective police last week initially arrested three Biman officials who are Captain Abu Mohammad Aslam Shahed who is chief of planning and scheduling, Emdad Hussain, deputy general manager of flight service wing and Tofazzal Hossain- a manager of flight scheduling.

It was subsequently exposed that more than 62 Biman officials were active in the trafficking and the exposure is still underway. Detectives also arrested Mahmudul Haque Palash, the godson of the chairman and Harunur Rashid who is the owner of money exchange house located at Uttara. But those working at the other end in Dubai remained out of touch.

News reports further said more than 12 gold hauling syndicates are active at the Dhaka airport to make it the largest gold trafficking route of the region and Biman’s chairman’s godson was facilitating their activities risk free.

Air Vice Marshall Jamaluddin was the chief of Bangladesh Air Force when Sheikh Hasina was prime Minister from 1996 to 2001. Her government had procured Mig Jet fighters from Russian at that time and the subsequent BNP government sued former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Jamaluddin and some others for buying the fighter jets at exorbitantly high cost to benefit personally from the deal. It appears that the Prime Minister appointed Jamaluddin at Biman for his part in the deal but he has misused her trust by converting Biman into a den of thief.

Referring to the hiring of Kevil Steel, a British citizen and successful aviation manager as the first ever foreign Bimaan’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, the sources said he was forced to leave the organization after one year of his job in April 2014 because of non-cooperation of the chairman and harassment that he came to face to performing his job properly.

Kevin was successful to replacing aged DC10 fleet with new Boeing aircraft. He restored punctuality from 30 percent on time to 70 percent and annual losses reduced from $75m to $10m last year He was planning to return Biman to full profitability by 2014/15. But vested interest quarters took him as a major obstacle and consequently he was forced to leave Biman.

Source: Weekly Holiday