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The ministry of finance has overlooked the 'tainted' image of Vitol Asia Pte Ltd., though the Singaporean company was blacklisted thrice in Sri Lanka while its US unit was accused of bribing Latin American officials to secure contracts.
Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday said Vitol Asia has been vilified by the media as a 'blacklisted' company.
"But despite repeated attempts, we could not (find out) the allegations against them," he said.
"We have studied the company in-depth via the internet, but could not find anything (bad)," he said, requesting reporters to provide information about Vitol Asia to his office if anything available.
Mr Kamal was talking with reporters after approving the procurement of 3.36 million British thermal units (MMBTus) of liquefied natural gas from Vitol Asia Pte Ltd., Singapore, at a meeting of the cabinet committee on government purchase.
On February 17, the cabinet committee headed by the finance minister also approved the procurement of 6.720 million MMBTus of LNG from Vitol, which raised the eyebrows of many people. The company also delivered one LNG cargo in September last year to Petrobangla.
Vitol along with its partners is also set to get the contarct for setting up the country's first Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) terminal at Matarbari deep-sea under an unsolicited offer.
A web search about Vitol found that the company was blacklisted thrice in Sri Lanka for supplying dirty fuel and its US unit was accused of bribing officials in three Latin American states to secure bids.
According to Bloomberg, its US unit last December agreed to pay over US$160 million to settle allegations of conspiring to pay bribes in Latin America and attempting energy market manipulation.
On Wednesday's meeting, the committee also approved the procurement of 3.36 MMBTus of LNG from AOT Trading AG, Switzerland.
The procurement of services from Md Moyenuddin (Bashi) Limited at a cost of Tk 1.36 billion for the development of Kurigram (Daserhat)-Nageshwari-Bhuruingamari-Sonahat land port road to the national highway also got the committee's approval.