Mysterious wealth of former ministers in Bangladesh

by Midnight Musing
December 15, 2011

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1991/mysterious-wealth-of-former-ministers-in

It happened in Bangladesh and continuing to happen even during the current government! Before becoming ministers, while they were ridding on public transports or human-paddles Rikshaws, they appear to be extremely wealthy people, right after they become an 'ex minister'. Most importantly, most of these politicians in Bangladesh, who decide the fate of the nation, are mostly not having any valid source of earnings!

Today I will talk about a very talkative politician, who was earliest associated with left-wing terrorist outfits in the southern part of Bangladesh, and was lately traced as having connections with notorious jihadist outfit named Jamaatul Mujahedin Bangladesh. Very often, he would be seen proclaiming to be "honest man" thus trying to educate people about being "honest" and "patriot". But in his personal life, this man, who did not have enough source of earnings to buy even a small piece of land in the capital city has emerged as a multi-millionaire, right after he resigned from the minister-ship and the ruling party, in protest of corruption and nepotism. Only within the four plus years of being the junior minister in one of the most corrupt ministries in Bangladesh, he lands up being the owner of a plot in one of the very expensive and posh areas in Dhaka city, with a multi-storied luxurious building. The man, who was mostly ridding on public transport and Rikshaws [man-paddled three wheeler in Bangladesh], now his family maintains 5-6 vehicles, mostly expensive ones and his children running multi-million dollar businesses. And the Anti Corruption Commission [ACC] in Bangladesh has no time at all to investigate the source of such sudden huge wealth of the ex junior minister, just because, it has become a tolerated culture in Bangladesh, where politicians always become millionaires after continuing in the offices for years or even for months.

During the dictatorial regime of former military General Hussain Muhammed Ershad, all of his ministers and junior ministers as well as his cronies became fabulously rich within a timeframe ranging between months to years.

Safiqul Ghani Swapan [son of Moshiur Rahman Jadu Miah] was included in the cabinet of General Ershad as a junior minister in charge of Communication Ministry and later in the Ministry of Public Works. Before becoming minister, Swapan was even unable to pay rents of the house he was living with his family. But right after he became the junior minister in General Ershad's cabinet, Swafiqul Ghani Swapan emerged as a hugely rich individual with multiple business enterprises [floated right after he became a minister] and finally emerging as a fabulously wealthy man! No one ever asked as to wherefrom he got such mysterious wealth, because his family members were proudly proclaiming to have received millions of dollars as "kick back" from the Japanese construction company, which got the contract for building the bridge.

This is not only in the case of Safiqul Ghani Swapan alone, but all the ministers in Ershad's cabinet as well as his sycophants and cronies turned "magical millionaires". It also happened with series of girl [women?] friends of this military dictator. All of them attained fabulous wealth and "power" simply by maintaining "wealthy relations" with the playboy dictator.

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