A staggering $16bn may have been siphoned out of Bangladesh annually during the 15-year tenure of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the country’s interim government has alleged.
In a statement released on Sunday, Interim leader, Muhammad Yunus said this was part of findings by the committee appointed to review the country’s economy.
Hasina, 77, who led Bangladesh for over two decades, faced criticism for her authoritarian rule and harsh crackdowns on dissent.
She was declared wanted by Bangladesh’s International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) for her alleged involvement in “crimes against humanity” that took place during demonstrations that led to the death of hundreds.
Similarly, a Bangladeshi court on October 17 ordered her arrest and fled the country to India in August after she was ousted by mass protests by students.
Some members of her cabinet have been arrested, while the court also issued warrants for 45 others, including former government ministers who also fled the country.
“Our blood curdles to know how they plundered the economy,” Yunus said in the statement.
“The sad part is they looted the economy openly. And most of us could not summon the courage to confront it.”
The document shows “the economy we inherited after the July-August mass uprising,” he said.
The panel led by economist Debapriya Bhattacharya had presented a white paper on the state of Bangladesh’s economy to Yunus in Dhaka on Sunday, scrutinising seven large-scale projects, out of 29 that involved expenditures exceeding 100b taka ($836m) each.
Originally budgeted at 1.14tr taka, the costs of these projects were later inflated to 1.95tr taka by adding unnecessary components and inflating land acquisition prices, the report alleges.
“The problem is deeper than what we have thought,” Bhattacharya stated.
“The white paper will show how crony capitalism gave birth to the oligarchs, who controlled the policy framing,” he added.
Bangladesh: $16b Laundered Annually Under Ex-PM Hasina, Interim Govt Alleges is first published on The Whistler Newspaper