The long-cherished dream of having Bangladesh’s nuclear power plant began forming when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina launched the main building construction phase in 2017.
Nuclear power plants are expected to deliver up to 20% of electricity in the not-so-distant future. The (RNPP) Rooppur Nuclear power plant is supposed to produce 2400 megawatts of electricity using two VVER units, each capable of producing 1200 MW by 2024. This surely will drastically help to solve Bangladesh’s ever-increasing electricity demand.
Beneath the glitz of media propaganda, Sheikh Hasina and her family members have benefitted from the nuclear power plant project by embezzling more than $5 billion as kickbacks to purchase Soviet-era nuclear reactors from Russian Rosatom. The power plant is overpriced, with a whopping construction cost of $12.65 billion. Russia assisted former prime minister Hasina in siphoning this $5 billion to various Malaysian banks from various Russian slash funds kept in the Malaysian banks.
Corruption in construction project
Bangladesh did not sign a civil nuclear framework agreement with any Eastern or Western nation to train locals on nuclear technology and manage nuclear energy in the event of catastrophic accidents.
Bangladesh has no prior knowledge of the nuclear industry and no professionals who can design and construct nuclear power plants. Nevertheless, Bangladesh signed a contract with Russia to build a power plant and let Russia completely control the construction without any supervision because Sheikh Hasina and her family received $5 billion in kickbacks.
However, the recent media report regarding the high price of purchasing goods for furnishing apartments at the Rooppur power plant ignited the issue from a different dimension. Now, people are beginning to raise their finger on the entire project. It surely is discomforting that it involved many top-tier institutions like the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC).
This alarming issue drew public attention so that it couldn’t remain the only departmental inquiry but reached the High Court Division. According to the Probe Committee statement, “the ministry does not have any connection with official activities, and approval or appointment of the contractors in the project.” This statement raised another question: If the ministry cannot remain responsible for its supervising functionality, then who shall take the responsibility?
This unbelievable price tag and the transpiration cost indicate a direct form of corruption of a higher level of insincerity. Corruption may emerge from unethical actions but is promoted by inefficiency, insincerity, unaccountability, etc. Such a weaker form of organizational management is hardly expected from any other typical government initiative, let alone an issue like a nuclear power plant.
Corruption is a contagious disease; if it isn’t cured, it spreads like cancer and affects every other surrounding. If the government take this matter seriously, then it could be a potential example of our foreign patterns as an indication of both corruption and unaccountability, which later may pave the path for more prominent and more extensive forms of corruption because nuclear plants involve the application of new technology, which aligned with such information asymmetry that may lead to corruption. Lastly, we shall not forget how the Nuclear power plant of Bangladesh was blown up by greed and corruption.
Hasina’s authoritarian rule
In developing nations like Bangladesh, for example, democracy is being gradually held hostage in the grips of corruption-plagued autocracy.
In a research study published on March 23, 2018, the German think tank Bertelsmann Stiftung has already listed Bangladesh among the autocratic regimes. Because of the severe interference of the authoritarian rulers, various institutions, including the judiciary, have already become mere puppets.
Back in 2015, when UK Labour Party MPP Tulip Rizwana Siddiq, daughter of Shafiq Siddique and Sheikh Rehana, won the election, her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, proudly told the country’s parliament how her niece had defeated her Western contestants.
The Prime Minister also told the parliament that her younger sister, Sheikh Rehana (Tulip’s mother), is a British national who lives in the UK and is experiencing financial hardships. Sheikh Rehana goes to work on a bus as she can’t afford to buy a personal vehicle.
Tulip Siddiq facilitated the negotiation of kickbacks from Rosatom to Sheikh Hasina in London before finalizing a deal to build a nuclear plant in Rooppur, Bangladesh.
Following her victory, Tulip Siddiq was invited to Bangladesh and was accorded several receptions. One such reception titled – Let’s Speak to Tulip Siddiq, MP, was organised at the Radisson Hotel in Dhaka and was sponsored by a fraudulent company named Prochchaya Limited.
According to media reports, Tulip Siddiq mediated a very controversial $1 billion arms deal between Bangladesh and Russia in 2013. Under Russian assistance, she also played a crucial role in Bangladesh’s ongoing Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant. Tulip didn’t offer this service for free! In addition to the monthly ‘honorarium’ she has been receiving from her aunt, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, since January 2009, Tulip’s mother, Sheikh Rehana and several members of the ruling family dynasty in Bangladesh got 30 percent ‘kick-back’ from the Russians and the entire amount has been secretly deposited in several offshore bank accounts in Malaysia.
Dhaka’s largest Bangla daily, the Prothom Alo, wrote in a report dated April 12, 2015, ‘Tulip accused of concealing Putin link’: “A British newspaper has published a story alleging that Bangladeshi-origin Labour candidate Tulip Siddiq concealed information of her meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, one of the most controversial figures in Europe today.
Mail Online reported that Tulip Siddiq was accused of “failing to tell voters that she met Vladimir Putin in Moscow two years ago in 2013 when a controversial billion-dollar arms deal was signed” [between Bangladesh and Russia]. The report said the Tories accused Ms Siddiq of trying to conceal her extraordinary links to Putin and Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.”
Tulip Siddiq, a former aide to Ed Miliband and who is a Labour Party MP in Hampstead and Kilburn, was at the Kremlin with her aunt, the autocratic leader of Bangladesh who is accused of human rights abuses.
British newspaper Daily Mail also referred to a photograph showing a smiling Ms Tulip Siddiq alongside Vladimir Putin, Sheikh Hasina, and Ms Siddiq’s mother, Sheikh Rehana.
A report titled “Tulip Siddiq, Russian arms deal, and Bangladesh dynasty politics,” attributed to the Tories, claims that she appears to have gone to great lengths to cover up her trip in January 2013—just six months before she won a hotly contested Labour selection contest in Hampstead—and her links with Hasina.
The report added that the Tories also said she had deleted postings and photographs on her blog which showed how she campaigned to get her aunt [Sheikh Hasina] re-elected [in a controversial voter-less election held on January 5, 2014.
According to the report, the Tories “questioned why her 1,200-word official Lab-our profile made no mention of Putin, the arms deal or being a member of a ruling Bangladeshi dynasty”. British Labour Party MP Tulip Siddiq met Russian President Vladimir Putin on January 15, 2013, with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Ms Tulip also is an advisor to the Bangladeshi PM.
British MP Tulip’s Kremlin Connection
Media reports show Tulip Siddiq mediated a controversial billion-dollar arms deal between Bangladesh and Russia. Under Russian assistance, she also played a key role in Bangladesh’s ongoing Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant. Tulip didn’t offer this service for free! I. In addition to the monthly ‘honorarium’ she has been receiving from her aunt, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, since January 2009, Tulip’s mother, Sheikh Rehana and several members of the ruling family dynasty in Bangladesh got a 30 percent ‘kickback’ from the Russians and the entire amount has been secretly deposited in several offshore bank accounts.
Corruption allegations against Tulip Siddiq’s family members: Tulip’s paternal uncle, Tarique Ahmed Siddique, is the Security Advisor to the Bangladeshi Prime Minister. His wife and daughter are stakeholders in a fake company named Prochchaya Limited (Incorporation Certificate Number C-75659/09, dated March 25, 2009).
This company, in affiliation with a slash fund cheat fund company named Destiny Group, had smuggled out around $900 million to different countries, including the United Kingdom and has opened a company named Zumana Investment & Properties Limited [Incorporation Certificate Number 7417417, dated October 25, 2010] in the United Kingdom by investigating dirty money. Various newspapers claim in the UK and worldwide that Labour Party MP Tulip Siddiq has maintained discreet connections with Moscow since she met President Putin. Some of those recently expelled Russian diplomats even visited the house of Tulip’s mother.
Anti-Corruption Commission has summoned 33 officials.
The Anti-Corruption Commission has summoned 33 Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project officials concerning irregularities amounting to $64 million but never summoned Hasina for stealing billions from the power plant project.
According to a notice issued by the commission on Sunday, the officials have been summoned to investigate the project’s abuse of power, irregularities, and corruption.
Commission spokesman Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya confirmed that the anti-graft watchdog asked the officials to appear before the authorities concerned on November 6, 7, 11, 12, and 13.
Social media was flooded with criticism soon after the nuke plant housing purchase anomaly was revealed last May.
According to media reports, the purchase prices of various items to furnish the project’s apartments for the officials and employees were unusually high compared to the market prices.
A pillow was found to have been bought for $100, while its carrying cost from the shop to the building was $10.
The government formed two probe committees to investigate the fraud. The reports found that $64 million crore was swindled in the “pillow scam” under the project for Rooppur in Pabna, a western Bangladeshi district 213km from the capital.
According to the media report, an electric stove costs $120, and the carrying cost from the ground floor to the top is $100. An electric iron costs $80, and the carrying cost is $50.
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