The government was likely to scrap a stalled deal for borrowing from the World Bank for building a bridge across the Padma River so that it could proceed to ink a new loan agreement with Malaysia for the prestige project, officials said on Sunday. They said that the government was eager to explore the alternative [...]
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday alleged that “a Bangladeshi Nobel laureate” had lobbied the World Bank through a top US official against financing the Padma Bridge project. Speaking at an Awami League Parliamentary Party meeting, she said the Nobel winner had tried from the beginning to convince the World Bank not to fund the mega [...]
Days after the World Bank suspended funding for the Padma bridge project following allegations of corruption, Malaysia has expressed its willingness to extend loan for the project. A special envoy of the Malaysian government, Dato Seri S. Samy Vellu, told prime minister Sheikh Hasina at a meeting on Thursday that his country is ready to [...]
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have extended the deadline for putting into effect their respective loan agreements with the government to early 2012, on constructing the Padma Bridge. The extension of the deadline came as a sequel to the suspension of its pledged funding worth US$ 1.2 billion [...]
Finance minister A M A Muhith is spreading confusion over the Padma bridge project, BNP acting secretary-general says. “The World Bank says there has been corruption in the project and sent a letter to the government suspending its fund for it. On the other hand the finance minister is creating a smoke screen by saying [...]
Bangladesh has requested the World Bank (WB) to clarify the nature of graft, it suspected in the proposed $2.9 billion Padma Bridge, so that those allegedly involved in corruption could be punished and the issues relating to corruption, effectively addressed, ahead of the construction of the mega infrastructure, officials said on Wednesday. The WB has [...]