Home ›› 24 Jun 2022 ›› Special Supplement
To cut a long story short it has been solely the determination, devotion and daring venture of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to walk along the path un-trodden before.
She took the decision to get the Padma Bridge built with the country’s own fund as World Bank cancelled the project on unproven allegation of corruption.
However, three years into the cancellation of loan assistance the World Bank said they were happy that Bangladesh was constructing it with its own fund.
World Bank’s (WB’s) former senior vice president and chief economist Dr Kaushik Basu during a visit to Dhaka in December 2015 said, “We all know it’s not a good history. Now we hail whatever is happening. One thing that should be kept in mind is that good news sometimes emerges from bad history.”
Replying to a question on the inauguration of the bridge’s work in November 2014, Basu said, “... that is great news. We certainly hail this move.”
Despite WB and partners’ loan cancellation, Padma Bridge is now a reality and awaiting inauguration on June 25 by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who took the boldest decision ever to build the bridge with the country’s own fund in July 2012.
She was slammed at home and abroad for taking the decision. Even, when WB cancelled the loan scheme, Bangladesh, as a country and its Prime Minister faced criticism in different forums even in local political arena.
But now, different countries, communities and development partners are praising the Prime Minister for her courage and timely decision.
The Russian Federation in a statement recently said the construction of Padma Bridge is a ‘landmark achievement’ that was made possible by the far-sighted vision of the Bangladesh government and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The bridge is a true game changer as it offers multiple opportunities in terms of regional trade, investments, connectivity, employment, tourism and many other fields, Russian Embassy in Dhaka said in a media release.
Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming lauded Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina saying that under her leadership the bridge had grown from a vision out of reach to a solid reality.
Back in the days when the government of Bangladesh was conceiving the idea of the bridge, there were some complications about finance, technical viability and legitimacy of the plan.
Some partners from abroad didn’t believe such a plan could ever materialize, he said.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina steeled herself to remove all the doubts, pressures and allegations and decided to build the bridge with Bangladesh’s own finance, which required tremendous courage and a strong sense of political responsibility, he said.
However, taking the decision of building the bridge with own fund and the implementation wining all challenges was not easy.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina herself on several occasions described the hurdle she and her government faced as she went forward with the mammoth task.
In February 2019 at a programme she said AL-led government after completing the feasibility study laid foundation stone of the bridge in 2001 but the next BNP-led government stopped construction showing an excuse that the bridge would be built at another place.
In 2008 when her government came to power again she resumed the initiative. World Bank and IDB showed interest in financing.
The World Bank showed the most enthusiasm but in the middle of the process they brought a complaint that there had been corruption here. Even then no money was released, nothing, where is the corruption? They could not answer when asked this question.
“I threw them a challenge to prove where the corruption took place,” she said.
She said based on a writing on a piece of white paper, WB started saying they had strong proof of corruption.
“Some of their executives used to come to Bangladesh, they used to sit in an office and spread propaganda saying I am a corrupt person in Bangladesh, my whole family was involved in corruption. We have looted the money of Padma Bridge etc. Where did they give the money that we looted?”
The Prime Minister said she took the challenge and decided not to stop the project. “We will not take their money and if we can, we will do it with our own fund. I asked Mashiur Rahman (Economic Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister] to write to World Bank. They must give proof of corruption,” she said.
The Prime Minister said WB did not answer despite separate letters sent to it. She also mentioned name of a Nobel laureate and editors of two national dailies who were also involved with the WB conspiracy.
A Canadian court later ditched all corruption allegations involving construction of the bridge, she said.
The Prime Minister said many people thought it was not possible to build Padma Bridge without the World Bank. “But I thought we could. I have talked a lot with the Finance Minister about this.”
She added, “WB used to say to arrest him and they will pay. I said it will not be like this.”
“You will not understand how we had to fight about it and how much we had to endure the mental anguish,” she said.
At a parliament session this month she said former Grameen Bank MD Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus lobbied to stop funding of the World Bank. An editor was also involved with the conspiracy.
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She said her family members were also labeled as corrupts by the WB and USA. Mashiur Rahman, former secretary of the Bridges Division Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, former minister Syed Abul Hossain - all of them became victimized.
Mashiur Rahman, the Economic Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister, recalled the pressure the government faced and how the Prime Minister fought against all unjust accusations.
Speaking at a programme of the ruling Awami League in May this year he said he did not agree to step down following the World Bank’s demand. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina backed him up.
He said officials of WB, Asian Development Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency proposed them to leave Bangladesh and offered consultancy work at the WB or a job at any university but he refused.
Their proposal was inconsistent. They wanted to reward the person they accused, he said.
Mashiur said, “The Prime Minister gave me courage…..“I’ll be safe until the shadow of Bangabandhu protects me,” he said.
Mashiur also said Hasina’s wit and courage finally made the construction of the bridge a reality.
Nine days after the WB pulled out of the Padma Bridge project funding citing corruption conspiracy, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in July 2012 at the parliament announced that the bridge would be built with the country’s own fund and construction would begin as soon as possible.
A bold Prime Minister also urged the global leaders not to put up unnecessary obstacles to Bangladesh’s development efforts. She also shared an initial plan of own funding saying that the construction cost would be supplied on a year-to-year basis.
She planned to spend Tk15, 000 crore for the main bridge, Tk7, 200 crore for river training, Tk1, 281 crore for building Jajira approach road and Tk310 crore for Mawa approach road initially.
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She informed the parliament that her government had already spent Tk1, 500 crore on land acquisition and rehabilitation purposes.
The cost, however, increased over the years for many reasons. Now the total cost stands at Tk30, 1933.7 million or USD 3.868 billion.
Dr Atiur Rahman was the governor of Bangladesh Bank when Prime Minister was on her effort to assure country’s own fund for the bridge project.
In a recent write-up published in a national daily, Dr Atiur Rahman said, Premier Sheikh Hasina-led government kept its cool and decided to start construction of the bridge with domestic resources even though the Finance Division was quite reluctant to take up this huge task.
“Around that time, I saw from a very close quarter how the Premier unbundled the conspiracy and kept on moving forward without much hesitation. The Bangladesh Bank stood by her and gave the comfort by promising necessary foreign exchange support from the banking sector.”
The country by then had already come out of the global financial crisis and was experiencing current account surplus with surging foreign exchange reserve. Both exports and inward remittance growths were exceptionally buoyant around that time.
“And we also knew that the foreign exchange requirement by the project would not be in bulk and the banking sector was strong enough to respond to its demand.
I still remember that we had a meeting of the Project Director of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project and representatives from Bangladesh Bank and Agrani Bank in the office of the Governor of Bangladesh Bank immediately after the decision of the government to implement the bridge with its own resources.
We designed the modalities for this foreign exchange support while the Ministry of Finance was by then prepared to put in place the local resources under Annual Development Programme. We reassured the Agrani Bank to provide all the regulatory support including additional foreign exchange from the bulging reserve.
We are now happy to report that Agrani Bank has already put in 1.4 billion US dollars into the project while Bangladesh Bank always stood by the bank. The financing mechanism has been gradual and smooth and the banking sector was ready to walk extra miles for this pride project,” his article published on June 7 this year read.
Chairman of Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project’s Panel of Experts (PoE) Prof Dr M Shamim Z Bosunia recently shared his experience about how Prime Minister encouraged local experts and engineers to take the challenge to be involved with the project.
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He said late Prof Dr Jamilur Reza Choudhury was already heading the experts’ committee comprising of renowned engineers.
“In April, 2013 I attended a programme of IEB (Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh) in Chittagong after I was elected president.”
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was the Chief Guest. After the programme she was talking to some senior engineers.
“The Prime Minister suddenly addressed me and said ‘we will need to start construction Padma Bridge as soon as possible. Can’t you (engineers) start that without any delay?’ I was a bit nervous and replied, we can do that if Jamilur Reza Choudhury sir is there with us.”
She asked Jamilur Reza Choudhury the same question. Jamilur Reza sir was confident. “Everything is ready - the design and plans - if the funding is ready local engineers would give their best effort,” Prof Bosunia quoted him.
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Bosunia was made the Chairman of the committee after the death of Prof Dr Jamilur Reza Choudhury.
