Dipu Moni indicates family still reeling from the ‘machinations of a certain person’

Education Minister Dipu Moni has accused Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus of holding grudges to this day for losing the legal battle after being removed as the Grameen Bank boss and making her husband pay for it.

Dipu Moni’s husband, Tawfique Nawaz, is an Oxbridge-educated lawyer, who had represented the Bangladesh Bank, a party in the much-talked-about lawsuit in 2011.

The education minister was addressing the parliament during a general discussion on the Padma Bridge to congratulate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina under section 147 (1) of the rules of procedure.

Though the then foreign minister did not delve into details of what Yunus did to Tawfique and the aftermath, she insisted that the family is still reeling from the ‘machinations’ the former managing director of the micro-credit pioneer had put in place.

Dipu Moni, however, refrained from addressing Yunus by his name.

“The man was so upset after losing the legal battle that he was out to get the then government, Sheikh Hasina, her sister Rehana. Not even the counsel for the government [in the lawsuit] was spared from his wrath,” she said.

“Sadly, a certain quarter’s vengefulness has not worn out. I still face their wrath as the wife of that counsel.”  

Hasina has repeatedly accused Yunus of working actively to stop the credit the World Bank was supposed to issue for the project.

Multiple lawmakers took part in the discussion and lauded the prime minister, also the leader of the House, for her tenacity and 'monumental effort' to make the mega project happen.

Opposition BNP’s parliamentarian Rumeen Farhana was highly critical of the skyrocketed expenditure of the project through.

“The cost [for making the Padma Bridge] was equal to almost 12 Bhupen Hazarika Bridges constructed on the river Brahmaputra connecting the northeast states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in India,” she said.

The pre-feasibility test for building the Padma Bridge was conducted in 1999. Hasina had laid the foundation stone for the construction of the bridge on Jul 4, 2001.

After a detailed study, the Japanese donor agency JICA recommended the construction of the Padma Bridge at the Mawa-Jazira end in 2004.

The bridge project hit a snag as the World Bank in 2012 cancelled its $1.2 billion credit, saying it had evidence of a corruption conspiracy involving Bangladeshi officials, executives of a Canadian firm and individuals.

Hasina inaugurated the construction of the main bridge on Dec 12, 2015.

The first span of the Padma Bridge was installed in 2017. It took about three years and two months to install the remaining 40 spans.