The minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs, Advocate Md Asaduzzaman, has said a huge amount of money was siphoned abroad during the previous government’s time in office. A report in Time magazine said 234 billion dollars had been illegally siphoned out of Bangladesh by documented means over the past 16 years, he said.
He made the remarks in his address as chief guest at the opening of a training programme for new lawyers at the Chattogram District Bar Association auditorium on Sunday morning.
The event, chaired by the president of the Chattogram District Bar Association, Tarik Ahmed, was attended as special guests by the mayor of Chattogram City Corporation, Dr Shahadat Hossain; the member of parliament for Chattogram-9, Mohammad Abu Sufian; the district and sessions judge of Chattogram, Kazi Abdul Hannan; metropolitan sessions judge Md Hasanul Islam; chief metropolitan magistrate A G M Monirul Hasan Sarkar; chief judicial magistrate Md Sohag Talukder; deputy commissioner and district magistrate Mohammad Zahidul Islam Mia; and a member of the ad hoc committee of the Bangladesh Bar Council, Mohammad Nazim Uddin Chowdhury.
The law minister said: “This is not my information; it is information published by a world-renowned magazine.” That is, he said, an average of about 16 billion dollars a year went abroad. The money was invested in banks and assets in various countries under Bangladeshi identities, he said.
Giving an example of corruption, he said that in the case of a project in Pirojpur during the previous government’s time not only was money siphoned off, but there were also extensive irregularities in the name of implementing a development project. Although work worth three and a half thousand crore taka by the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) was shown as done on paper, in reality no work had been done. Not an inch of road was built, and not a kilogram of rod or a hundred taka worth of cement was used. Yet work worth three and a half thousand crore taka was shown on paper and the money looted.
Advocate Md Asaduzzaman added that this vast siphoning of money has seriously damaged the country’s economy and development. Thousands of crores of taka were looted in the name of development projects during the previous government’s time, and the people did not receive the benefit. Corruption had then taken an institutional form in almost every sector. State money was looted in the name of development projects and siphoned abroad. As a result the country’s development was obstructed and public confidence damaged.
Noting that the present government is working to establish the rule of law, the minister said the government is working to build an accountable system of state. Lawyers and state institutions must work in a coordinated way, he said. His call to the new generation of lawyers, he said, is that they take an uncompromising stand against corruption and use their talent, integrity and professional skill to establish justice. The present government’s aim is to break out of the past culture of looting and money laundering and build a transparent, accountable and democratic state. For that, he said, there is no alternative to establishing the rule of law at every level of society and building collective resistance to corruption.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report