Bangladesh's ambassador to Lebanon has accused his counsellor of 'non-cooperation' and 'obstruction' in leading the new mission.
Published : 21 Jun 2014, 05:48 PM
AFM Gousal Azam Sarker has also blamed counsellor ATM Monemul Haque for financial irregularities.
He said in a letter written to the foreign secretary that it was “not pleasant for him to write against his colleague, but he was compelled to do so."
He said Haque was into "serious malpractices”.
An information cadre officer, Haque has been sent as counsellor to Lebanon.
He served as chargé d'affaires in the new mission from May to Sep last year, before Sarker joined as the ambassador.
Haque had earlier served in Bangladesh deputy high commission in Kolkata.
Sarker, a career diplomat of the 1986 batch of BCS foreign affairs cadre, joined the Lebanon mission from Sweden where he served as Bangladesh ambassador. He has earlier served in Paris, Kathmandu and Cairo.
In the long 12-page letter, a copy of which is with bdnews24.com, he also furnished evidences about Haque's irregularities.
The mission is expected to provide services to more than 100,000 Bangladeshi workers in Lebanon’s burgeoning service-oriented economy.
The ambassador in the letter said he was getting cooperation from the Lebanese ministers, heads of departments, international organisations and his diplomatic colleagues, in a perfect environment to boost Bangladesh’s relations with this relatively new labour market.
He also expressed his confidence that “Bangladeshi workers would be able to migrate at lower cost without middlemen interference” to Lebanon.
He said he was working to bring Bangladeshi doctors, holding single country fair and jute and textile goods fair, bringing pharmaceutical industries delegation to market Bangladesh’s pharmaceutical products.
“But all that is being affected and delayed due to negativism of my colleague,” Sarker wrote.
A former ambassador told bdnews24.com that “the government should look into the issue very seriously for the sake of the country”.
Sarker wrote: “An ambassador cannot function efficiently, or in peace and devote necessary attention and promote political, economic, commercial, cultural and representational interests of Bangladesh under such stressful and constrained conditions”.
“It would be indeed a nightmare for any ambassador to organise a new embassy under such conditions, constraints and obstacles,” he maintained.
He wrote the mission was “required to deal appropriately with a swarm of Bangladeshi brokers and dishonest Lebanese agencies, who are constantly trying to deceive workers and Mission in cahoots with two of its staff members and the Counsellor”.
The counsellor appointed those two staff.
A foreign ministry official said Bangladesh ambassador in Egypt had carried out an investigation at the foreign ministry’s request.
Sarker in the letter also dropped a hint about that investigation.
He alleged that the counsellor fed “concocted stories and fabricated versions through his links” during the enquiry.
Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque would not make any comment on this 'internal document'.
Sarker also declined comment when bdnews24.com approached him saying “I wrote to my authorities. How did you get it?”
Counsellor Haque said he had no idea about the letter.
But when briefed, he said “all are aware of my track record in the last 24 years of service”.
“My work might stand in the way of someone’s personal interest,” he said.
“I have very good relations with the host authorities. They cooperate with me, that’s why it is easy for me to deal the labour issue,” he said.
According to the letter, Haque “systematically” concealed from the ambassador issues relating to manpower exports, labour welfare and consular handling from the beginning.
Sarker says Haque sees his corrective efforts as “interference on his turf”.
"The Counsellor has set out to disturb me and embarrass me, humiliate me and damage my reputation and career and my wife’s reputation in a planned conspiratorial way, " Sarker says in his letter.
He says Haque did not consult him while hiring the Chancery building in an “unsuitable environment” for running the diplomatic mission.
He mentioned that “the Chancery was found vulnerable to suicide bomb explosions, three of which took place in its vicinity, as it is located in the fringe of Hezbollah dominated area of Beirut, a prime target of terrorists linked to Al Qaeda and Syrian rebels”.
The ambassador said in the letter that the counsellor took decision on his own without consulting him.
There is no separate and direct telephone line for the ambassador as it has not been requested earlier.
The ambassador later came to know that the accountant and he were being monitored and “perhaps bugged through PABX system”.
The CCTV cameras were fitted in a way that the ambassador cannot see the persons sitting in the counters of labour, welfare and consular desks for monitoring.
He alleged that Haque involved himself in the community politics in a rather nasty way.
He also cited “serious irregularities” of financial management of the counsellor as he had issued new passports, attested and cleared visa for incoming Bangladeshi workers from June to Sep.
“No money receipts were found for the period of July to Sep,” he wrote.
There is no trace of 33 passports handled in June 2013 and no money was deposited against those passports, according to the letter.
The foreign ministry on Apr 10 this year wrote to the Beirut mission asking it why no consular income of June 8 to June 30 last year had been deposited in government accounts.
The ambassador in the letter said Haque dealt with the accounts in that period as chargé d'affaires.
The ambassador also wrote that he came to know from the honorary consul and accountants the counsellor had not deposited around $ 30,030 into the embassy account that he had received from the Honorary Consulate.
He enclosed some money receipts the counsellor took from the honorary consul with the letter.
He wrote that the honorary consul handed over an amount of $10,983 for welfare purposes. “I do not know where this money is. Nor can the AO (acctts) give any idea about it.”
The ambassador also lamented that the foreign ministry did not create necessary posts and allocate resources for this new mission.
“The Ministry has left the Mission on its own with constrained resources and the poor assignment of the Counsellor,” he alleged in the letter.