ACC Raid Finds People Living in and Subletting 54 Government Houses Listed as Abandoned in Chattogram's Agrabad

They are declared abandoned in government records, yet people are living in them. The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has found this pattern of irregularities involving 54 government houses declared abandoned by the Public Works Department in the Agrabad CGS Colony in Chattogram.

On Monday (November 2), the ACC's enforcement team raided the colony and found preliminary evidence of the irregularities. In some houses, individuals and families are living without any allotment letter, while a house allotted in one person's name has been rented out to another.

The enforcement team from the ACC's Chattogram District Office-1 inspected the houses on site in the presence of responsible officials from the Chattogram Directorate of Government Accommodation and the Public Works Department. During the inspection, the team noticed individuals and families living in various houses without allotment letters.

Checking records and questioning people on site during the raid also produced evidence that a house allotted in one person's name had been sublet to another person — that is, the allotment is in one name but someone else is living there.

It was also revealed that even after the Public Works Department declared a building abandoned, allotments were issued for the same building by the Directorate of Government Accommodation. The enforcement team believes there is a need to examine whether there were irregularities in the role and duties of responsible officials of the two departments.

What concerns the ACC most is that gas and electricity connections are also active in the houses declared abandoned. How the management, allotment and utility connections of these houses were handled after the abandoned declaration, in accordance with government rules, needs to be brought under investigation. The enforcement team will submit a full report to the Commission on this matter.

However, it is not yet known how many of the 54 houses are illegally occupied, who is collecting money from them and how much, and how long this living and subletting has been going on.

On the same day, another raid was conducted over allegations of irregularities in road construction work in Rahimanpur Union of Thakurgaon Sadar Upazila. In the raid by the Thakurgaon Integrated District Office, various aspects of the construction work were observed and samples of the construction materials used were collected.

The ACC said a detailed review will be made after checking the records collected in Thakurgaon and receiving the laboratory report on the material samples. The samples were collected to verify whether the quality and measurement of the work are correct according to the project's approved design and estimate. The enforcement team will then submit a full report to the Commission.