BANGLADESH

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has blamed 'corruption in the family of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina' for cancellation of the World Bank fund for construction of the proposed Padma bridge.

"None other than the government and the Prime Minister's family are involved with the corruption in the Padma bridge project," Khaleda said on Saturday while distributing aid among flood-hit people of Chittagong at Bahaddarhat.

"The World Bank has said it won't give money for the project. So, the Padma bridge is not going to be built in the tenure of this government," she added.

The global lending agency on Friday cancelled $1.2 billion (764 million pounds) promised credit for Padma bridge project with immediate effect, saying it had "credible evidence" of a high-level corruption conspiracy among Bangladeshi government officials.

"In light of the inadequate response by the government of Bangladesh, the World Bank has decided to cancel its $1.2 billion ... credit in support of the Padma multipurpose bridge project, effective immediately," the World Bank said in a statement.

Khaleda said 'long bridges' like those on Jamuna and Bhairab had been built during BNP's tenure with the help of World Bank and other lenders.

"But," she added, "There were no allegations of corruption in those projects."

"The government has started corruption even before the work to build the bridge has started. They are doing this to earn huge amounts of commission," she said.

Khaleda also alleged that the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) had become a 'subordinate organisation' of the government. "The ACC operates following orders from the government."

"The World Bank had cited specific instances of corruption in the Padma bridge project. But they (government) did not take any step. No step was taken even against the minister involved with the corruption in the project," Khaleda said.

The World Bank in its statement said it had provided evidence of corruption from two investigations into the Padma bridge project to Bangladesh's Prime Minister and other senior government officials to press for action.

The 6-km bridge is meant to link the country's underdeveloped south with the capital Dhaka and the main port of Chittagong.

Then Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain was transferred after the allegations had been brought, though he has been saying that there was no corruption in the project.

After the global lender suspended fund for the project last year, Malaysia expressed its eagerness to build the bridge. Later this year, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Bangladesh. On Jun 28, it submitted a draft plan to build the bridge.

Khaleda on Saturday also slammed the government's move to find an alternative funding for the bridge construction.

"Now they (government) are trying to build the bridge [with loans] at high interest rates ... And the high interests will be passed on to the people," she said.

Khaleda, a two-time Prime Minister, also said BNP would build two bridges on the Padma river, one near Mawa and another near Daulatdia, once it returns to power.

Celebrated writer and playwright Humayun Ahmed has been kept under close observation at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital as his condition failed to improve.

Mazharul Islam, owner of the Onno Prokash, told bdnews24.com that the popular writer was in intensive care unit and that his condition did not improve in the last 48 hours.

"He is under sedation," he said.

His wife Meher Afroz Shaon requested everybody to pray for his fast recovery.

The popular writer was rushed to the hospital on Jun 20 after a 'successful' surgery on Jun 12 for his colon cancer in New York.

That day, his abdomen had swollen and he complained of severe pain.

Islam said the writer could not recognise any of his family members including his wife.

"He has been taken immediately to the Jamaica Hospital where doctors said the surgery had caused infections.

"The writer has been transferred to the Bellevue Hospital where he was operated upon again," he said, "Then he has been kept in ICU. But again became restless on Jun 28."

Expatriate writer Gazi Hashem said, "The writer wailed Kushum (Shaon's surname) and said 'they will kill me, please take me away from here'. He was trying to remove his bandages."

"It left us puzzled. Then doctors administered sleeping pills," he said.

Humayun, also a renowned filmmaker, went to New York on Sep 13 last year after he was diagnosed with colon cancer during a routine check-up in Singapore.

Born in Mymensingh in 1948, Humayun did his graduation from Dhaka University and later joined the university as a lecturer of Chemistry but retired to become a fulltime writer and filmmaker.

Winner of prestigious Bangla Academy Award in 1981, Ekushey Padak in 1994 and three National Film Awards (Best Story in 1993, Best Film 1994 and Best Dialogue in 1994), Humayun continued writing while he was in New York taking treatment.

On Jan 13, the government made the 63-year-old writer Senior Special Adviser to the Bangladesh Mission at the United Nations in New York.

Last month, he had come to the country on a 20-day-visit to spend time with his friends and relatives before the surgery.

A Dhaka court has placed on a six-day remand to a former Saudi Embassy employee, who allegedly threatened the mission's charge d'affaires.

Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Moniruzzaman passed the order on Saturday, Anisur Rahman, Additional Deputy Commissioner of the Information and Prosecution Department of Police, told bdnews24.com.

The Detective Branch (DB) of police had arrested 56-year-old A N M Abdur Rashid, a Bangladeshi national, from the city's Banasree area on Friday night.

Police said that Rashid had sent a threatening SMS to the Saudi Ambassador and the Deputy Ambassador on Jun 20.

Jashim Uddin, the Legal Affairs Advisor of the Saudi Embassy, had filed a general diary with the Gulshan Police Station in this connection.

Rashid told reporters that he had been the interpreter of the Saudi embassy for 15 years, but the embassy fired him on May 21 after accusing him of corruption.

He admitted that he sent the message out of anger.

The alleged threat comes three months after a Saudi Embassy official was killed by unidentified assailants in Dhaka.

Corruption and lack of accountability make The World Bank, dubbed one of world's most powerful institutions, one of the "most dysfunctional" in the world, says a report by one of world's most respected publications.

Fingers have been pointed at the Bank's immediate past President for failing to rein in the systemic slide. "No one, starting with outgoing President Robert Zoellick, has laid out an articulated vision for what the World Bank's role is in the 21st century," says Forbes magazine in a long and detailed report.

"It is an endlessly expanding virtual nation-state with supranational powers, a 2011 aid portfolio of $57 billion and little oversight by the governments that fund it," says the magazine.

"And--according to dozens of interviews over the past few weeks, atop hundreds more over the past five years, plus a review of thousands of pages of internal documents--problems have gotten worse, not better, at the World Bank despite more than a decade of reform attempts."

It says President Obama's pick for the top job, Dr Jim Yong Kim, has taken over an organisation that is "lumbering" and lacking in accountability.

Kim "stands little chance of fixing things", the report says quoting insiders, "unless he is prepared to completely revamp the current system".

A former World Bank Director is quoted as saying: "The inmates are running the asylum."

The Forbes report lists the nature of problems — philosophical, structural and cultural.

While its leaders have lacked vision, corruption has crept in, says the report.

"Internal reports, reviewed by Forbes, show, for example, that even after Zoellick implemented a budget freeze, some officials operated an off-budget system that defies cost control, while others used revolving doors to game the system to make fortunes for themselves or enhance their positions within the bank.

"Why not track all the cash?

"Good luck: Bank sources cite up to $2 billion that may have gone unaccounted for recently amid computer glitches."

The report in the July 16 edition of Forbes Magazine coincides with a statement from the Bank's Washington headquarters announcing cancellation, attributed to "credible evidence of corruption", of a credit line for Bangladesh's largest infrastructure project.

The cultural problems within the Bank have their roots gone far deeper.

"The bank, those inside and outside it say, is so obsessed with reputational risk that it reflexively covers up anything that could appear negative, rather than address it.

"Whistle-blower witch hunts undermine the one sure way to root out problems at a Washington headquarters dominated by fearful yes-men and yes-women, who--wary of a quick expulsion back to their own countries-- rarely offer their true opinions."

Founded after the World War II along with International Monetary Fund, the Forbes report points out, it started off with lofty ideals, went on to help rebuild Japan and Europe and then expand into a global outfit.

Until as recently as 1964, Japan was a recipient of the Bank's aid, this writer was told by academics in Tokyo in 1994. The post-War Europe fared fantastic too.

Problems probably began after it ventured into the poorer parts of the planet.

After 50 years of existence, the Bank's management realised in the1990s, fighting poverty didn't just mean pouring money into projects. Building institutions mattered more.

"Why did an organisation that pontificates about policies in poor countries take such a long time to understand its own job?" Visitors to Bangladesh have always ducked this question.

Richard Behar, the Forbes journalist who has covered the Bank for the past five years and often been shunned by Zoellick and his team, is scathing about its lending operation.

"The process for its funding, grants and loans is absurdly complicated, but in essence it combines capital from its donor countries, plus self-generated income through the sale of bonds.

"While often confused with the IMF, which provides financial stability to governments, the World Bank's role is at least supposed to be only development projects--like building dams, roads, schools, even fish farms--although it has muddied those boundaries over the last 20 years.

"Unlike the IMF, the bank deals with both the public and private sectors, and as the number of projects and amounts of money have escalated, so has the mischief, corruption and cover-ups, since no agency has the power to audit them."

Forbes' Behar says "it's not surprising" that Zoellick declined to give an interview for his report. "I've covered the bank for the past five years and have been ritually denied access to anyone in a mid-to-top-level post.

"The blockade ended just before Forbes went to press, when the bank conducted a carefully monitored conference call with two staffers who run the global 'Open Data' initiative. The bank's media relations spokesman was permitted to be quoted by name. That this is considered openness epitomises the problems that Kim now inherits."