Posh party organisers under ACC scanner

The commission took the move after it was informed that a section of city people were organising different programmes at the posh party centres avoiding tax and value added tax while the expenses for the parties were found disproportionate to the legitimate income of the organisers, a director of the commission told New Age on Sunday.
He said that as a part of such move, a commission-led joint taskforce on Thursday collected various documents from Police Convention Hall and Dhaka Ladies Club about the parties held there in 2016 and the organisers of the parties.
The drives were conducted two days after the formation of the nine-member taskforce led by director of the commission Syed Iqbal Hossain, said the commission director general.
The taskforce includes commission director Jayed Hossain Khan, National Board of Revenue joint commissioner Mohammad Shamsul Alam and VAT intelligence joint director Abdul Manan, he said.
The director general said that the taskforce would examine the source of income of the organisers of such lavish parties like wedding party, reception programme and anniversary party.
The party centres would come under investigation and the taskforce would examine whether the centres paid tax and VAT properly, he said.
He also said that the task force would collect such documents from other costly party centres gradually for
investigation. The taskforce may conduct sudden raids to such party centres during parties if necessary, he added.
Transparency International Bangladesh executive director Iftekharuzzaman told New Age that the move was an affective initiative to ensure transparency of such costly events.
He urged the commission to continue the drive not favouring anybody as the law was equal for all.
He also said that the commission should extend the move to other cities including Chittagong. 
In the past week, the commission formed 19 teams to hunt for corruption in 15 organisations, including utilities, regulatory authorities and selected government departments.
Since the joining of commission chairman Iqbal Mahmood in March 2016, the commission officials have caught red handed at least 14 government officials while taking bribes from service seekers and arrested over 300 corruption suspects across the county. 

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