DHAKA, Jan 29: About 80 per cent of 2,800 staff at Bangladesh’s biggest state-owned gas distributor took bribes to the tune of millions of dollars, the head of a government anti-graft body said on Tuesday.

Employees of Titas Gas Distribution Company pocketed bribes in return for undercharging thousands of factories and homes for years, said the chief probing the company, which supplies about 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s gas.

Colonel Hasan said so far 127 workers at Titas Gas had agreed to return four billion taka ($58 million) worth of assets bought with the money they took.

“But it is a tiny fraction of the money these people have made by under-billing the amount of gas a company or an individual household has consumed,” he said.

“It’s the tip of the iceberg. We have found that almost 80 per cent of the company’s 2,800 employees are corrupt.

They bought flats, factories, land and shops with the stolen money.” The country’s military-backed government launched an investigation into the company last year as part of a nationwide anti-graft drive it began in February 2007.—AFP