Govt dillydallying wasted 10 months: BNP

Dhaka, Sep 21 The BNP on Friday said that the World Bank's decision to come back on board the Padma bridge project is 'positive'.
The opposition party, however, pointed out that 10 months were 'wasted' due to inaction of the government following the global lender's graft accusations last year.
"We have been saying from before that it is impossible to build the Padma bridge without World Bank's funding," BNP's Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said.
"We hope that in the future the government does not patronise such corruption in this project."
The lending agency had stalled disbursement of its pledged $1.2-billion funding in September last year, the bank's statement on Friday said.
It added that it previously shared credible evidence of corruption with Bangladesh and asked the government to implement a series of measures for the bank to remain engaged with the project, which the government failed to do leading to the loan's cancellation on June 29.
Those steps included sending all public officials suspected of involvement in the alleged corruption on leave until the investigation is completed; appointing a special inquiry and prosecution team within the Anti-Corruption Commission to handle the investigation; agreeing to provide full access to all investigative information to an external panel of internationally recognised experts; and agreeing to new implementation arrangements that gives the bank and co-financiers greater oversight of the project procurement processes.
Speaking at Naya Paltan's Hotel Victoria's seminar room at a views exchange programme with the new committee of their student wing and journalists, Fakhrul demanded that the names of those accused by the global lender for graft be publicised and steps taken against them.
"It has to be admitted that if steps were taken against the graft in the Padma bridge project earlier, 10 months would not have been wasted. What is the reason behind the government not acting before even though the World Bank provided them with credible evidence? If they had acted at that time, the deal would not have been scrapped in the first place."
"We want a Padma bridge funded by the World Bank," he added.