By IANS
Dhaka : Bangladesh is to re-commission a frigate it purchased from South Korea for $83 million but removed from its fleet five years ago after a government change and charges of corruption.
The frigate was "torpedoed by mean politics," The Daily Star said Sunday.
The state-of-the-art frigate has remained idle for more than five years now because of sheer "political meanness" of the immediate past BNP-led alliance government, it said.
It was commissioned in June 2001 by the government led by Sheikh Hasina, but eight months later the regime of Begum Khaleda Zia de-commissioned it after charges were leveled that the vessel and been overpriced at taka five billion ($1=Taka 60 approx.) and that it had sub-standard equipment on board.
A nephew of Zia, Saiful Islam Duke, who quit Bangladesh Navy owing to a bad record to become her personal secretary, was behind the de-commissioning move, the newspaper said.
Duke was involved in many defence purchases between 2002-06, it said.
Significantly, the present government of Chief Advisor Fakhruddin Ahmed, while working to put the ship back in operation, is also pursuing the corruption case filed by the Zia government against Hasina and Daewoo Shipyard, the South Korean shipbuilder.
This case and the purchase of MiG-29 for Bangladesh Air Force have been mired in controversy and Hasina says their revival is meant to "target" her.
The procurement of the frigate of model DW 2000H built by Daewoo Shipyard triggered controversies prompting the BNP-led alliance government to file an anti-corruption case against the prime minister of the last Awami League government, Sheikh Hasina.
Equipped for underwater, surface and air operations, the high-tech frigate, of model DW 2000, 'Bangabandhu', was decommissioned on Feb 13, 2002 and removed from the naval fleet, the newspaper said quoting unnamed "competent defence sources.".
The decommissioning was done on the pretext of corruption in purchasing the frigate. "If there was corruption, let there be legal actions against that. But what is the justification of decommissioning a world class frigate of the navy?" another unnamed high defence official was quoted as telling the paper.
The then Bureau of Anti-corruption filed a case in 2003 in connection with the purchase of the frigate from the fourth lowest bidder in the tender, Daewoo, for incurring a loss for the government. The case virtually died after Hasina, Daewoo's local representative Abdul Awal Mintoo, and four defence officers had been granted bail in August 2003.
A high-powered investigation committee headed by erstwhile commodore Hasan Ali Khan was formed. The other members of the committee were Commodore Kalimullah, Captain P.K. Barua and Captain Naser. The committee was assigned to detect "substandard equipment" installed in the frigate, but it failed to substantiate the allegation, the newspaper said.