‘Yunus-TIB should apologise for Padma bridge conspiracy’

Online Desk  :   Awami League has said that Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, international corruption watchdog Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) and some Bangladeshi intellectuals should apologise for their conspiracy against the World Bank’s Padma Bridge project financing.

Ruling Awami League’s publicity affairs secretary Hasan Mahmud said, “They have to make unconditional apology regarding this.”

The Awami League leader said this in an official reaction after a meeting at the party chief Sheikh Hasina’s Dhanmondi office in Dhaka on Monday.

Mahmud alleged that Yunus had sent an e-mail to US high officials asking them not to fund the Padma bridge project.

He added that TIB and other local intellectuals were trying their best to prove the corruption in the largest mega-project of the country.

The AL leader said due to WB’s evil motives Bangladesh has been affected financially.

“They were engaged in making anti-state conspiracies. Their work has tarnished the image and dignity and Bangladesh abroad. They will have to face justice and the government is thinking about the issue,” Mahmud said.

When asked about BNP’s reaction after the Canadian court dismissed the bribery allegations in the Padma Bridge project, the AL leader said the party does not believe in any courts be it local or foreign.

In June 2012, the World Bank cancelled its $1.2 billion credit for the Padma bridge project, saying it had proof of a “corruption conspiracy”.

They blamed ‘some’ Bangladeshi officials, Canadian executives from a firm and some other individuals.

On February 10, 2017, a Canadian court dismissed an international bribery case linked to the Padma Bridge project at the prosecution’s request.