BMirror Desk :

For over a decade, Tiger IT has controlled the BRTA (Bangladesh Road Transport Authority) RFID vehicle number plate and digital smartcard driving license projects without any competition.

Since the Awami League came to power in 2009, the controversial company Tiger IT has been implementing the BRTA’s RFID vehicle number plate and digital smartcard driving license projects. Despite having the capability, no local company has dared to compete with Tiger IT due to the influence of Tariq Ahmed Siddiqui, the security advisor of the ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Tiger IT has also been implicated in corruption in the World Bank-funded project related to printing smartcards for the Election Commission. In 2019, the World Bank blacklisted Tiger IT and its chairman, Ziaur Rahman, for corruption, with a ban on the company for 9.5 years and on the chairman for 6.5 years.

Despite the contract termination, Tiger IT’s annual audit report for the fiscal year 2019-20 still showed a profit of 2.2 crore Taka from the BRTA project.

Currently, Shahinaz Siddiqui, Tariq Ahmed Siddiqui’s wife, is trying to involve herself in new government projects. Ziaur Rahman, who controls the entire project through various companies, is still active despite the international blacklist, which prevents Tiger IT from participating in World Bank tenders until 2027, and Rahman from international tenders until 2025.

Tiger IT has been involved in several projects with Election Commission, Dhaka WASA, Passport Directorate, and NID division through a front company named IBICS-Primex, with billions of Taka worth of work remaining unaudited and unassessed.

The company remains influential in the projects due to the connections of its managing director, AHM Rashed Sorwar, who was appointed by Ziaur Rahman. Rashed Sorwar’s father-in-law was a former president of the Kustia district committee of the Awami League. Following the change of power on August 5, Rashed Sorwar and his family moved to the United States. Ziaur Rahman, holding an American passport, is reportedly controlling all projects from Dubai.

The electronic chip-based digital smartcard driving licenses were introduced in 2011 to prevent counterfeit, illegal, and fake driving licenses, with Tiger IT being involved from the start.

Even after the blacklist, Tiger IT has continued to hold onto the project, delaying the transfer of necessary equipment to the new vendor, Madras Security Printers, for years. Attempts to contact Ziaur Rahman for comment have gone unanswered as he is currently residing in Dubai with an American passport.

On February 13, 2020, the cabinet approved a project to buy 400,000 digital smartcard driving licenses without a tender for 18.9 crore Taka. Each license was purchased at nearly ten times its market value due to high-level directives. The market price of each smartcard is 50 Taka, but they were bought at approximately 500 Taka (472.60 Taka) each.