Egyptian Embassy Denies Authorizing Kawsar as Power of Attorney
Photo: Agamir Somoy
A fraud network allegedly involved in attempting to secure a Tk 300 billion monorail project in Chattogram has come under international diplomatic scrutiny.
After global construction giant Orascom Construction and Egypt’s state-owned The Arab Contractors, headquartered in Cairo, denied any involvement, the Egyptian Embassy in Dhaka has now formally declared that all claims made by the group are false, illegal, and baseless.
The embassy issued the official denial at 1:44 pm on Monday in a written response sent via email to Agamir Somoy.
In its letter, the embassy stated that after reviewing information and documents provided by Agamir Somoy’s reporter, it conducted a high-level inquiry with the relevant parent companies in Egypt. Following the investigation, both Orascom Construction Group and The Arab Contractors confirmed to the embassy that they have not authorized or approved any consortium or entity named “Arab Contractors–Orascom Peninsula Consortium” to operate in Bangladesh.
The Egyptian Embassy further stated in strong terms that it has not issued any authorization, approval, diplomatic clearance, or power of attorney to any individual named Kawsar Alam Chowdhury to represent Orascom Construction Group in securing any mega project or contract from the Government of Bangladesh.
Despite the written denials from the Cairo-based parent companies published earlier by Agamir Somoy, the Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) had continued to defend Kawsar Alam, the alleged mastermind of the fraud network. In a statement issued on Saturday, CCC even claimed that although Orascom was no longer involved, The Arab Contractors alone would execute the Tk 300 billion project. However, the city corporation has since remained silent.
