BAEC member protests against rejoinder to news of COVID-19 incentives

A member of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission has protested against a rejoinder to parts of a bdnews24.com report on special payment of coronavirus incentives to officials despite it being an agency not involved in preventing the pandemic or treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Md Azizul Haque, the member of planning at the commission, said in a statement on Friday that BAEC Secretary Tapan Kumar Saha “falsified in a dodgy way”.

“In fact, 34 employees of the Atomic Energy Commission were given incentives. In the rejoinder, the words ‘official’ and ‘employee’ were used in a dodgy way to say that no official was given incentives,” he said in the statement.

Azizul told bdnews24.com on Thursday that BAEC Chairman Sanowar Hossain gave the money to “some officials” at his own discretion without any official document.

In Friday’s statement, he said he had meant employees of lower grades when he said “some officials” had received incentives.

The secretary used the words to “falsify” in the rejoinder, Azizul added.

A BAEC document showed that Chairman Sanowar on Jul 2 approved a total of Tk 347,758 in incentives.

bdnews24.com on Thursday reported that BAEC and Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority disbursed money among a number of employees as coronavirus incentives.

Citing BAERA Chairman Muzammel Haque, bdnews24.com also reported later that BAERA would take back the incentive money from the employees.

But BAEC sent a rejoinder saying it had given no incentives to its officials.

Its Secretary Tapan said in the rejoinder that Azizul’s comments in the first news were “personal” and “untrue”.