Former social welfare minister’s relatives on the destitute list

Nurun Nahar Anowar is the sister of former social welfare affairs minister Nuruzzaman Ahmed. Nurun Nahar’s husband is a former professor of Dhaka University. Yet, Nurun Nahar’s name was on the list of recipients of special grants meant for destitute and helpless people.

Not only Nurun Nahar, her son-in-law Mohammad Javed Chowdhury who was an official of a cell phone company is also enlisted as destitute and hapless people. Both of them are currently living in Canada. According to information from the National Social Welfare Council, a total of Tk 50,000 grants were disbursed in their names in 2021-22.

Bangladesh National Social Welfare Council is the national council responsible for carrying out social welfare activities and programs under the social welfare ministry. This council provides assistance to destitute people for treatment, education of their children and house construction. According to information from the council, special assistance worth Tk 2,50,92,000 was disbursed to 1631 people in Lalmonirhat district in 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24 fiscal years.

Nuruzzaman Ahmed was made state minister for social welfare ministry in 2016 and minister in 2019. He could not find a berth in the last cabinet formed in 2014. Nuruzzaman was a member of parliament from Lalmonirhat-2 (Kaliganj-Aditmari).

In the list of recipients in the financial year 2021-22, there are names of 16 family members including Golam Mostafa, Golam Farooq, Abu Saeed Khan, Abu Zafar Khan, nephew of Nuruzzaman Ahmed's wife in Kanchanshwar village of Kaliganj upazila. They received a total of Tk 470,000 in this financial year. In 2023-24 financial year also, 10 members of Ghulam Farooq's family get assistance again.

Golam Farooq, however, claimed to have no knowledge about enlistment of names of his and his family members. But Kaliganj upazila social welfare office’s recent past officer Abdur Razzaque confirmed that they got grants.

Rakibul Islam, member of Kaliganj’s Tushbhandar union parishad, told Prothom Alo that the former minister deprived destitute people to ingratiate his relatives.

Nurun Nahar Anowar and Javed Chowdhury were contacted on Whatsapp for their comments, but did not reply.

Nurun Nahar’s younger brother Mahbubuzzaman Ahmed, who was Kaliganj upazila chairman, told Prothom Alo that both are good people. Perhaps someone used their names.

Abu Taleb Albani, former chairman of Tushbhandar union parishad, is the father in law of the former minister’s assistant personal secretary (APS). Names of Abu Taleb, his wife Musarat Rehena and son Fuad Hasan were in the list of grants recipients for 2021-22 fiscal year.

Asked, Abu Taleb said someone else might have used their names.  
However, Ashik Babu of Mohishkhocha village under Aditmari upazila differed with Abu Taleb. Ashik is the cousin of APS Mizanur Rahman. His name also appeared in the list of beneficiaries of the 2022-23 fiscal year.

Ashik claimed that APS Mizan took Tk 700,000 from him over recruitment in a post at a madrasa. But as he had failed to manage the job, he returned Tk 100,000 in two cheques of government grants.

In the 2022-23 financial year, Tk 50,000 was allotted for some Deljar Rahman of Mohishkhocha union but he did not get any money. Deljar claims that APS Mizanur's uncle Sekender Ali made him open an account with Dutch-Bangla Bank but later did not get any money. At least 20 people like Deljar told Prothom Alo that they did not receive money even though their names were on the list.

It was not possible to reach the former minister and his APS for their comments as they went into hiding since the fall of Awami League government on 5 August in a student-mass uprising.

More incidents of irregularities took place over distribution of the grants. Ministry’s official Liton Mia’s father-in-law Mohammad Hossain, his mother in law, wife and four sisters-in-law received around Tk 200,000 grants in the last three fiscal years. Liton’s father-in-law is a well off farmer in Kaliganj. Asked how he received the grants meant for destitute persons, Liton Mia said he took the money as his wife was ‘ill’.

Insana Begum, an assistant teacher of government primary school at Gopal Ray village in Kaliganj, and his husband district Jubo League’s sports affairs secretary Monju Ali Sheikh received Tk 170,000 twice in 2021-22. Insana claimed they received the money as her father-in-law was a cancer patient.

Upon analyzing the list, it was found that over 100 beneficiaries of the grants were picked because of their political affiliation.

National Social Welfare Council allocated over Tk 10 million (10250000) to Kaliganj upazila social welfare council in Lalmonirhat in 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 fiscal years for poor people and those affected by natural disasters and coronavirus.

According to Abdur Razzak, the member secretary of this committee and former upazila social service officer, (he was transferred to Pirganj of Rangpur on 4 September), Tk 374,000 was spent on buying medical equipment and 800,000 was spent on rehabilitating beggars. The rest of the allocation has been given to help poor and needy people.

But no beneficiary people were found on at least four master rolls lists. A source from Kaliganj social welfare committee said these fake master roles were filled up with names of various trainees and beneficiaries of social security programs.

Meanwhile, office assistant Parvin Begum filed a general diary on 5 September mentioning that all documents including the master rolls. A staff of union social welfare council told Prothom Alo that Abdur Razzak and Parvin Begum orchestrated the loss of documents to conceal their proof of 'corruption'.

Asked about the incident, social welfare council’s executive secretary Shahidul Islam told Prothom Alo that action would be taken through investigation by the district social welfare committee if any specific allegation of irregularities are found.