Hasina takes a swipe at Yunus

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday slammed Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus, calling him a “selfish person” who can do anything for his own sake, said ruling Awami League sources.
She claimed that Telenor, a Norwegian telecommunication company, lobbied for Yunus and even donated a huge sum to the Clinton Foundation so that he got the Nobel prize. But the company, she added, was no longer with Yunus.
Hasina, also president of the AL, made the comments at a meeting with a group of party leaders at her official residence Gono Bhaban.
Prime Minister’s Adviser HT Imam, Communications Minister Obaidul Quader, Forest and Environment Minister Hasan Mahmud, State Minister for LGRD Jahangir Kabir Nanak, AL Organising Secretary Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury and central leader Alauddin Nasim attended the meeting that continued for more than an hour.
Later, the prime minister separately talked to Quader, Nanak, Alauddin, AL General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam and Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif.
Hasina said she promoted the microcredit concept at the United Nations and other places in the world when she was prime minister between 1996 and 2001.
“Even Grameenphone was set up during that tenure of our government. What a selfish person he is! He can do anything for his own interests,” Hasina was quoted as saying by a party lawmaker, who talked to The Daily Star on condition of anonymity.
She said Grameen Bank was formed for lending money to the poor. But this bank diverted funds to Grameen Shakti and other similar institutions, which it was not supposed to do.
He even set up Yunus Centre with the bank’s money, and his brothers and relatives made money from the bank’s associated institutions, alleged the AL chief.
She said her government wanted to make Yunus an adviser to Grameen Bank even though he had held the post of its managing director past the retirement age in violation of the bank’s law. But he declined to be an adviser and wished to stay on as the managing director.
Hasina said a powerful country backs Yunus and the day is not far away when the people of that country will learn all about him and ask their government to withdraw its support for him.
“When that country turns him away, what will happen to him?” the AL chief was quoted as saying by an AL leader who was present at the meeting.
Her comments came a week after Prof Yunus told an AmCham meeting that the 84 lakh members of Grameen Bank are not only citizens of the country but also voters.
At another meeting in Chittagong on June 19, he also warned the government that people would not allow it to split Grameen Bank.
Apart from issues related to Grameen Bank and Prof Yunus, the AL’s debacle in city corporation polls, organisational matters and the next general election figured prominently in yesterday’s meeting.
At the beginning of the meeting, Hasina described how the AL survived the years following the assassinations of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his close aides.
She expressed optimism about winning the next parliamentary election despite the fact that the ruling party-backed candidates suffered humiliating defeats in the recent elections to five city corporations.
She hoped people would “surely” think about the incidents of torture, repression, killing, corruption, militancy and bomb blasts during the tenure of the past BNP-led government, and vote her party to power.
“Though we have been defeated in the city corporation polls, we will not suffer the same fate in the next parliamentary election. We will definitely win,” she was quoted as saying by an AL leader.
Talking to The Daily Star, Quader, also a member of the AL Presidium, said, “The prime minister has directed us to make an all-out preparation to counter propaganda and the use of the religion card by the BNP, Jamaat and Hefajat, and strengthen the party for the next election.”
Hanif, also special assistant to the prime minister, said the party chief asked them to attend party offices regularly and organise district tours.
Another party source told The Daily Star that a major shakeup was likely both in the party and the government, as the prime minister had mentioned about it to her close aides.
Some of the high-ranking ministers and party leaders might lose their positions in the party and the government for poor performance, said the source.

Source: The Daily Star