Country looks into waste and finds waste

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh's anti-graft body has flushed out extensive corruption in government departments, including one case where 122 workers were paid to fix a single toilet, the anti-graft body said.

Colonel Hanif Iqbal, director general of the Anti-Corruption Commission, said the body had discovered more than 335 million taka ($4.8 million) had been misappropriated between 2000 and 2007 in nine regional offices of the state-run Bangladesh Telecommunications Company in Khulna.

Iqbal said the telecoms department showed a claim for 100 workers' wages for repairs of electricity lines even though no work had been carried out.

Bangladesh's army-backed interim government, which took over in January last year, has made fighting widespread corruption a top priority.

The global corruption watchdog Transparency International rated Bangladesh the world's number one corrupt nation for five years until 2005.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by David Fox)