Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said her government would bring back from abroad all the money siphoned off by the two sons of BNP chief Khaleda Zia.
“We'll bring all the money back gradually,” she told a views exchange meeting with the leaders of her party's Sunamganj
district unit.
The government has recently brought back part of the money siphoned off by Arafat Rahman Koko, younger son of the opposition leader, from Singapore, she said.
Hasina, also president of the ruling Awami League, criticised the past BNP-Jamaat government, saying that the coalition government from 2001 to 2006 looted public money, grabbed funds from [Zia] orphanage, and siphoned off the money abroad.
The entire country had plunged into the dark abyss of corruption, terrorism, militancy and extremism during the BNP-Jamaat government, she said.
Hasina also listed successes of her government and said the people got something when the AL remained in power. BNP's motto is to loot public money, she added.
Terming the AL a pro-people organisation, Hasina urged the party leaders and activists to work more cordially for the greater wellbeing of the people.
Claiming that the elections are held in a free, fair and credible manner under AL rule, she said people would decide who would come to power through the next poll.
The AL government always believes in the constitution and democratic rights of the people and that's why it did not poke its nose into the Tangail by-election, she said.
“People didn't vote for the Awami League candidate. So we lost the election. But we didn't go there to rig votes as done by the previous [BNP-Jamaat] government.”
She claimed that more than 6,000 different kinds of elections had taken place under the present government in the last four years, and all of those were free
and fair.