Karim blamed the press for negative reports that, he claimed, affected his cash flow situation. He, however, did not write a single line explaining why he is avoiding arrest and how he would face the graft cases against him.

PDB sources meanwhile said it has made primary preparations to cancel the Meghnaghat-2 deal.

"Ideally, the sooner we cancel the Meghnaghat-2 deal, the better for the country. Orion can never do this project and it is simply wasting our precious time," said a PDB high official, adding, "How can he implement the project if he is hiding and wanted in major graft cases?

On January 21, the PDB served a notice of "Project Company Event of Default" on Karim's shell company BON Consortium Power Company Ltd, asking it to pay up Tk 6.22 crore as Meghnaghat-2 project's land rental by February 22 or face cancellation of the contract.

The PDB gave the BON Consortium 20 acres of land for this project.

"If the government wants it can simply cancel the deal tomorrow and move on because the Land Lease Agreement allows the government to cancel the deal instantly for its default."

The BON Consortium, which bagged the power deal as a political favour by the immediate past BNP-led alliance government, gave the PDB on January 21 a cheque for Tk 6.22 crore as land rental and initial development payment, but the cheque bounced.

As per the Land Lease Agreement (LLA) on Meghnaghat-2, the PDB can cancel the contract instantly for such a fault, it but gave BON Consortium one month's time.

In his letter that reached the PDB on February 7, Karim said his enterprise faced financial setback due to negative press reports. Karim, who has been absconding to avoid arrest on multiple graft charges, signed the letter on January 29.

He said, "...against the allegations published in various dailies regarding Oriental Bank upon quoting a Special Probe Report of Bangladesh Bank, we submitted specific facts and figures supported by documentary evidence to the honourable chief adviser, the honourable finance adviser and the honourable governor of Bangladesh bank and prayed an independent/judicial enquiry to unearth the actual state of affairs regarding Oriental Bank."

Karim is wanted by the police in different graft and criminal cases for swindling Tk 594 crore from the Oriental Bank. The charges were based on an investigation of the central bank at the fag end of the alliance government's rule.

Instead of appearing before the court with his arguments to clear his position, Karim in his letter tried to convince the PDB that he is clean and blamed the press for his situation.

"With all news articles published in the dailies on Oriental Bank over the last two weeks under different headlines continuously ignoring our rejoinders, our reputation and image groomed over long period of time got hurt. As a result, our day-to-day business activities were adversely affected. In addition, our shareholders and clients have been observing wait-and-see approach in making payment transactions which temporarily affected our Group's cash flow situations," he wrote.

"Specially our shareholders are closely monitoring the political development of our country. One would appreciate that the political chaotic situation prevailing in the country from the end of October 2006 until January 12, 2007 made any local or foreign investors concerned and worried, and made them follow a go-slow mode. This shall be evident from the dailies published during the period," he added.

He argued that because of these impacts, the cheque it gave to the PDB in January for land rental and initial development had bounced.

Karim claimed that in spite of this negative development, the BON Consortium made significant progress in financial closing of the project and two financial institutions had committed it more than 470 million dollars.

"Considering national interest for the project under present power crisis, we would request you to kindly allow us some more days in making due payment on account of Rent and Initial Development Payment," Karim's letter said.

The BON Consortium is supposed to be led by German power company Steag with only an officially unannounced 20 percent stake, Karim told The Daily Star early January. Orion has only 16 percent share and Belhasa holds the remaining share. But in reality the consortium is actually headed and run by Obaidul Karim as its managing director. Karim was known for his connection with the Hawa Bhaban and bagging many known and unknown deals worth several thousand crores of taka from the government.

Orion never actually gave the bid selected for this power project and it actually submitted its name as one of the two partners of a Japanese bidder Nisso Eiwi, which has the experience to qualify for building such a power plant. But Nisso disappeared from the scene in 2004 and Orion brought in the German company Steag showing it as the lead bidder.

The government initially rejected such a gross anomaly, but then with pressure from the Hawa Bhaban the government accepted and approved the bid in August 2005.

Orion signed a series of contracts with the PDB and other authorities for the power project and signed the LLA, the final deal, on October 11 last year. The cancellation of the LLA automatically terminates the other contracts.