Yunus tries to hide truth: Hasan

Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud on Thursday descried the Yunus Centre’s statement that denied Dr Muhammad Yunus’s role to scrap World Bank’s financing in Padma Bridge construction as evil attempts to hide the truth.

“As Padma Bridge has been built, many of those who opposed it changed their tone. BNP also tries to change its tone though Mirza Fakhrul Saheb yet to say anything,” he told reporters at his ministry in the Secretariat here referring to the Yunus Center’s statement issued to the media.

He said Dr Yunus is the mastermind of the perpetrators against Padma Bridge particularly scarping of WB’s credit for the mega project.

“. . . keeping due respect to Dr Muhammad Yunus Saheb, I want to present few data over the matter. It is clear like broad daylight that Dr Yunus Saheb played a role of key perpetrator in scrapping World Bank’s credit for Padma Bridge as he has special intimacy with Hilary Clinton, all at home and abroad know it,” he said, BSS reports.

The minister said the then World Bank President Robert Bruce Zoellick stated that there was no logical reason for scrapping the credit.

Firstly, Bangladesh is one of the partner countries of WB and it has share in WB and secondly, Bangladesh has never been loan defaulter as in terms of paying back debt the country’s position is very good in the world, Hasan said citing comments of Zoellick.

As there was no logical ground, continuous pressure was put on the then WB President, he said, adding that but Zoellick didn’t do so.

Zoellick had been forced to sing the decision to scrap the financing at the eleventh hour on the last working day of him at the WB, Hasan mentioned.