Singapore firm denies it supplied BTI

Dhaka, Bangladesh (newagebd.net) —  August 15, 2023 — Dhaka North City Corporation has been using a bacterial larvicide, Bacillus Thuringiensis Israelensis, for a week, claiming that the item was manufactured by a Singapore-based company that denied supplying the material to any Bangladeshi distributor.

 

On August 7, DNCC started using the larvicide imported by Bangladeshi contactor Marshal Agrovet Chemical Industries Ltd to enhance the anti-mosquito drive during the dengue surge.

The company said they had imported the material, known as BTI in short, from Singapore-based Best Chemical Co (S) Pte Ltd.

Johnny Wong, managing director at Best Chemical Co (S) Pte Ltd, better known as Best Chemical, responded to an email from New Age on Monday, saying that the company did not supply BTI to any agency in Bangladesh.

‘It has come to our attention that Marshal Agrovet in Bangladesh had supplied five tonnes of BTI larvicide product to Dhaka North City Corporation and fraudulently used our company name as the manufacturer for the product. The five tonnes of BTI larvicide were not supplied by Best Chemical,’ Wong said.

He also said that Marshal Agrovet is not an authorised distributor, and Li Qiang, who claimed to be the export manager of Best Chemical and a BTI expert, is not an employee of Best Chemical.

He threatened to take legal action against any parties found manufacturing, selling, and distributing or offering to manufacture, sell, and distribute products that infringe their intellectual property rights.

Marshal Chemical managing director Mohammad Alauddin denied making any comment and asked to contact chief executive officer Md Nasir Uddin Ahmed for comment. He provided a number for Nasir, which was found invalid.

While Alauddin was contacted again, his phone was switched off.

Officials said that the pesticide was not registered in Bangladesh and that its use started without the necessary pre-trial.

Entomologists feared that the use of the unauthorised chemical might cause serious public health hazards as well as serious ecological damages.

The government’s Plant Protection Wing confirmed to New Age that the product was not registered with them and had no approval for import.

According to the Pesticide Act 2018, any unregistered pesticide import or use is illegal.

The law also makes mandatory mention of some information about the pesticide, such as its dose, ingredients, and so on. However, the insecticides supplied to DNCC carried no such information.

Plant Protection Wing officials said that Marshal Agrovet had provided them with a sample of the insecticide for testing and approval last year but could not provide the necessary documents.

The agency denied registration of the pesticide, said an official.

Entomologist and former president of the Zoological Society of Bangladesh, Manjur Ahmed Chowdhury, said that the city authorities should immediately stop using the fake product.

He also demanded an inquiry into how the unregistered product was imported.

‘We don’t know what the product is. It might be a biological weapon,’ he said, demanding exemplary punishment for the people involved.

DNCC mayor Md Atiquel Islam said that he had asked for papers from the supplying contactor to check the authenticity of the allegation.

‘If they are found to be fraud, the company will be blacklisted, and we will not pay any money to them,’ he said.

The Marshal Agrovet won the tender, bidding the lowest Tk 16920,000 for five tonnes of BTI, with Tk 3,385.20 costing per kilogramme.

Atiq said that DNCC had already received five tonnes of product from the supplier for three months use.

He said they had sent the BTI sample to different agencies like the Plant Protection Wing, the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control, and Research, and Jahangirnagar University to test its efficacy.

DNCC mayor’s adviser and Jahangirnagar University zoology professor and vector management expert Kabirul Bashar claimed on Monday, however, that he found a good performance of the Larvicide in tests.

Source: https://www.newagebd.net/article/209433/singapore-firm-denies-it-supplied-bti?fbclid=IwAR1n1MPqHgkTCAGa2LMevzLtPzYlWR38zJusFprdmiEG9M0869RCim2agIA