Westmont duped govt, banks: ex-consultant
November 20, 2008
Allegations of financial irregularities and violation of investment conditions have been brought against private sector power production unit Westmont Power Ltd. The company’s former finance adviser, and chief executive of Timely Investment, Arif Niazi made the allegations public at the National Press Club on Tuesday. A fellow former financial adviser of Westmont, Finn Jenson was also present at the press conference.
“Westmont has been charging bills for 90MW power against production and transmission of only 69MW everyday at Baghabari,” Niazi alleged.
“The company thus illegally pocketed nearly Tk 400 crore by faking bills against roughly 20MW daily.”
Westmont confessed the illegal billing to the anticorruption task force officials on inquiry, Niazi claimed.
“Neither the government nor PDB has the main copies of the implementation agreement (IA) or the power purchase agreement (PPA), signed in 1998 with Westmont.”
“The government only has photocopies which contains some fabrications,” the former financial consultant alleged.
“The agreement with the government allows Westmont only to import barge-mounted power plants, but it has imported a low quality power plant instead, and grabbed crores of taka by selling the imported machinery,” Niazi said.
He said Westmont is registered as a solely foreign venture, though it never had foreign investment, and has been enjoying incentives provided for foreign companies.
Niazi also accused the company of defrauding banks to embezzle some Tk 175 crore.
Meanwhile, Westmont has itself brought charges against Arif Niazi, telling a press conference recently that the former consultant misappropriated Tk 10 crore from the firm.
He denied the allegation, saying he helped the firm make Tk 7.29 crore when it was in crisis. “Westmont is trying now to pocket the money itself,” he further alleged.
Source: bdnews24
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