Bangladesh Still in Serious Corruption Cloud

Bangladesh Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia, finally endorsed that her country is still amongst the world’s most corrupt nations.

New York (PRWEB) April 1, 2006 -- Bangladesh Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia, finally endorsed that her country is still amongst the world’s most corrupt nations. During a recent public meeting at Rajshani, a northern district in Bangladesh, Khaleda said if her party was voted to power again, the next course of action of her government would be to eradicate corruption. This is quite a confessional statement from the horse’s mouth. The PM’s vow to eradicate corruption in the next term clearly shows that they did nothing in addressing this issue during their present tenure.

Moreover, during BNP’s present rule, a few hundred leaders and activists of the party turned into millionaires and even billionaires by looting the public wealth. Sons of the Prime Minister are known to be most notorious looters in the country, who not only minted millions and smuggled out to various countries, but even helped their palls and friends in becoming fabulously rich through illegal means. Friend of PM’s elder son Tareq Rahman, Gias Uddin Mamun is a name well known in Bangladesh. Mamun belongs to southern part of the country and hails from a very poor family. Just because of being Tareq’s friend, he became multi millionaire in just few years. Now, he runs million dollar businesses and very recently even started a private television channel named Channel-1 with US$ 40 million as capital. Mamun’s elder brother Hafiz Ibrahim also became a business tycoon and has even invested a few million dollar in print and electronic media.

Former political secretary to Khaleda Zia, Musaddek Ali Falu, another poor man became billionaire during the present tenure of BNP. He owns two private television channels namely NTV and RTV as well a vernacular daily named Amar Desh. Falu made his fortune when he served as the political secretary to Khaleda Zia. No one dares to question the source of income of Falu as he is one of the most confident men of the PM.

Barrister Nazmul Huda is the Communication minister in BNP’s coalition government. Local press several times published prolific reports of his corruption through which he minted millions of dollar. But the PM did not take any actions against him as he donates a part of his illegally earned money to BNP’s party fund. Altaf Hussain Chowdhury, Barkat Ullah Bulu, Iqbal Hassan Mahmood Tuku, Lt. Col (Retired) Akbar Hussain, Shahjahan Siraj, Barrister Moudud Ahmed, Khurshid Jahan Huq (minister and sister of the PM), Abdullah Al Noman, Mirza Abbas, Fazlur Rahman Patal, Lutfor Rahman Khan Azad, Major Quamrul Islam, Amanullah Aman, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Advocate Goutam Chakravarty, Jafrul Islam Chowdhury, Asadul Habib Dulu and Advocate Ruhul Quddus Talukder Dulu are the members of the present cabinet who turned into millionaires during the tenure of BNP government.

Khaleda Zia’s brother Major Sayeed Iskander, who was fired from Bangladesh Armed Forces is another figure who became fabulously rich by using the power of his sister.

BNP government became shaky after the country topped the list of most corrupt nations published by Transparency International for the consecutive five years. They are trying to do everything to make an eye wash to the people of the country and to the global population with the formation of so-called neutral Anti Corruption Commission (ACC). But in reality, three of the main figures in this institution are all either former activists of the ruling party or their ideological allies. This was the main reason behind ACC’s dilly-dally in taking real effective measures against the corrupt figures in Bangladesh, as such initiative would primarily grill most of the members of the ruling party and family members of the Prime Minister. Critics opine that Bangladesh will never be able to combat corruption unless extremely corrupt people are removed from power.

###