Rejoinder, our reply

In a rejoinder to The Daily Star report “The Genie Gave the Money” published on Wednesday, Environment and Forest Minister Hasan Mahmud claimed that the report was an attempt to defame him by miscalculating his wealth and distorting information.
“The report calculated an escalation of the wealth of Dr Mahmud from 38.17 lakh to 15.46 crore compared to 2008. The monetary value of the shares of a number of limited companies amounting to more than Tk10 crore has been shown as cash value, while calculating the figures.
In fact, formation of a limited company does not require any investment in cash. Therefore, this calculation is quite wrong, misleading and unacceptable,” read the rejoinder.
Hasan added that he inherited some assets after the death of his father in 2011. He has a loan of Tk1.93 crore and his wife Tk5.75 crore, which have already been shown in the latest tax returns.
He also raised question about how his wife's company having the value of Tk9 lakh could make a profit of Tk1.75 crore.
OUR REPLY
Our report mentioned that we just compared the two statements of the Awami League leaders, which were submitted to the Election Commission before the parliamentary polls in 2008 and 2014. We just published the volume of the minister and his wife's wealth as mentioned in the wealth statement submitted to the EC by the minister.
Hasan claimed that formation of a limited company does not require any investment in cash, but he showed it as their moveable properties. And thus we added the value of the couple's share price to Hasan's wealth. The properties that the minister inherited were not mentioned in his affidavit submitted to the EC. So we had nothing to do in this regard.
The figures of the couple's loan amounts do not contradict any part of our report as we reported the same.
We stand by our report.