Tk 5 trillion siphoned abroad in Awami League government's final decade : minister

Ahmed Azam Khan says the government's treasury was “completely empty” when the Awami League left power

No less than Tk 5 trillion was smuggled out of the country "officially and unofficially” in the last 10 years of the Awami League rule, Liberation War Affairs Minister Ahmed Azam Khan has claimed.

Addressing an aid distribution event at the Sakhipur Upazila Council in Tangail on Saturday, he said the state treasury had been left “completely empty” when the Awami League was ousted from power.

“The interim administration then had to run the government like a pauper for 18 months,” he said. “When we took office, the situation at every level of government was at its worst.”

Azam, the MP for Tangail-8, also referred to the 1974 famine, saying thousands had died and hundreds of thousands more had suffered during the crisis.

He claimed Bangladesh’s situation began to “improve significantly” after BNP founder Ziaur Rahman came to power.

“I saw Bangladesh go from being a ‘bottomless basket’ to a prosperous country during his rule,” the minister said.