"An audit was to be carried out in every corporate branch every six months according to the law," the bank's Assistant Managing Director at the Head Office, Kamrul Hossain Khan, told journalists at the Anti Corruption Commission on Thursday.
"But when we went for an audit in the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch, we found that no audits were conducted in the previous one-and-a-half years."
He continued that even though they were supposed to get 30 days to check the branch's records, they were only given 10.
"As we had to finish the audit within that time frame, we could not go through any records of activities that were tied to the Hallmark scam."
Hossain continued that they had also applied for an extension of the deadline, but the application went without response.
The ACC had called six officials posted in the headquarters of the bank for questioning.
The remaining five are Senior Executive Officer K W Shahida Khanom, Executive Officers Iqramul Haque Mandal, S H Abdul Latif, Mohammad Anisuzzaman and Deputy General Manager A H M Abu Jafar.
ACC's Public Relations Officer Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya said that the corruption watchdog had until now grilled a total of 61 people in connection with the Hallmark scam. All of them except 10 are Sonali Bank officials.
Six companies, including the Hallmark Group, took away Tk 36.06 billion from the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch on fake papers. Of the money, Hallmark alone drew Tk 26 billion.
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