DHAKA, Sept 13, 2025 (BSS) - The agriculture ministry today termed as “baseless” recent newspaper and social media reports like “unique initiative to embezzle government money” or “allegations of unprecedented corruption in fertilizer import calling the campaign “conspiratorial propaganda”.

“The opinions/contents of the reports are baseless, imaginary, motivated and untrue,” a ministry statement said.

The statement said “it appears to the ministry that the published post/reports are conspiratorial propaganda” and added there were no irregularities in fertilizers import.

It said in line with a government policy the non-urea fertilizers are imported by private importers alongside the ministry under state level contracts or G-to-G agreements.
   
According to the statement after assuming office, the interim government decided to issue purchase orders only to companies which offer the lowest prices, enabling the country to save a huge amount of foreign currencies and prevent abnormal profiteering.

It said since no single country could simultaneously meet the import demands fertilizers are imported from different countries to ensure undisrupted supply process.

But, the ministry said, to geographical distance and transportation costs, cost and freight (CFR) prices vary from country to country and added that except for ship freight, both freight on board (FOB) and CFR prices are determined on the basis of international bulletins.

The statement said in line with a 2015 government circular prices are verified with the help of state-run Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) imported prices and of international price reporting services like Argus FMB and FERTICON.

According to government data, in the first phase of the 2025-26 fiscal year, 13 companies were given orders to supply 30,000 tonnes of TSP, 2.55 lakh tones of DAP and 90,000 tonnes of MOP fertilizers.

The statement said six more companies were given orders in the second phase to supply 90,000 tonnes of TSP and 1.20 lakh tonnes of DAP at same prices.

According to the ministry previously the import procedures enabled the second lowest or third lowest bidders to supply fertilizers in inflated prices due to a sealing limit for lowest bidders.

But the interim government policies to allow the lowest bidders alone to supply fertilizers resulted in halting wastage of foreign currency and minimize the discriminations among importers in terms of profit.

"Since the transparent and firm steps of the incumbent government, the import of fertilizer at an excessive price through syndicates has failed, a vested quarter launched a misinformation campaign,” the statement said.

The ministry called “unfortunate” and “unacceptable” the social media posts about the alleged irregularities without verifying the facts and urged the media to verify first the truth of the information since the country’s sensitive food security issue was related to such campaigns.

The statement said the government remained determined to keep the agriculture sector free from corruption and syndicates and also was ready to welcome any objective criticism.