Water and environment expert Dr. Ruknul Ferdous shared a post titled 'A day in the Prime Minister's Office' on his personal Facebook account. The post paints a picture of the stubborn nature of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of the fallen government. The status was shared by the interim government's press secretary Shafiqul Alam.
Ruknul Ferdous wrote, "I once worked with Dr. Mominul Haque Sarkar Sir. Dr. Mominul Haque Sarkar Sir is one of the leading river experts in Bangladesh. His head is a whole computer. He could tell us in the blink of an eye what would have taken us a long time to do, just by looking at the satellite image. It was a matter of luck to get the opportunity to work with Sir. In that sense, I am very lucky."
Many years ago. The then Prime Minister of Bangladesh had launched a project on the rivers of Bangladesh. The name of the project was “Capital Dredging”. There was also a high-level committee for this. So, before starting the “Capital Dredging” project, two pilot projects were taken up in the Jamuna River. One in Sirajganj and the other in Kurigram district. That high-level committee gave the responsibility to Dr. Mominul Haque Sarkar Sir to research whether dredging in the Jamuna River (at a specific place) in Sirajganj would be fruitful or not and report in the form of a report. Based on that report, the future of many things would be decided.
The result of our research was that "dredging in that specific area of the Yamuna River will not be effective."
Dr. Mominul Haque Sarkar Sir went to the Planning Minister's residence and was able to convince the Minister that "dredging will not be effective in that particular part of the Yamuna River". But the report that "dredging will be effective" has already been sent to the Prime Minister's Office. What is the solution now? The Minister told Sarkar Sir that you should prepare a new report and presentation and bring 10/12 copies of the new report on the day of the meeting with the Prime Minister.
Since a report has been sent, there is no need to tell anyone about it for now. I will inform the Prime Minister about the matter when I get a chance. I will give the report directly to the Prime Minister on the day of the meeting. I will ask the Prime Minister to give you the report after getting permission from him on the day of the meeting. I hope the Prime Minister will not refuse.
After the meeting began, the Prime Minister gave permission and the Planning Minister motioned for me to give the report. I walked towards the Prime Minister with the reports in front of me. Standing to his right, I saluted and handed him a copy.
I handed it to him. He took it in his hand and started turning the pages of the report one by one, trying to understand the entire report a little.
At that time everyone was silent. It was like a pin drop silence. The Prime Minister placed the report on his table and asked me to sit down. I asked if he would give the rest of the reports to the other ministers or not? He gave permission and I distributed the rest of the reports to the ministers and went to the seat allotted to me and sat down.
The Prime Minister talked a lot and finally said, “Dredging will happen and that is my clear statement. I don’t want to hear anything else.” I was very surprised that day. I knew the Prime Minister to be a very good person and a patriot. My long-standing assumptions were shattered in an instant. It doesn’t matter that a person is the Prime Minister of a poor country and thousands of crores of rupees will be wasted by him. What did he say? I sat silently with many questions and disappointment in my mind. I didn’t say anything else.
After the meeting, when everyone was leaving one by one after the Prime Minister left, the Secretary of the Ministry of Water came to me and asked me to go outside and wait for him. He would talk to me. When I came outside and was waiting for the Secretary of the Ministry of Water, he came out and asked me to sit in his car. I sat next to him in the Secretary's car and left the Prime Minister's Office. And that's when the attack on me started. There was no such bad abuse that the Secretary did not give me. He was abusing me in many bad words.
Once he asked, why didn't I tell him about the report I had changed? I said, the Prime Minister should know the truth, so I changed the report. After hearing this, the secretary told his driver to stop the car. When the car stopped in the middle of the road, near Vijay Sarani, the secretary kind of pushed me by the neck and made me get out of the car. My mood was very bad. I walked to Farmgate. I took a CNG taxi and came back to the office. I told the whole incident to Dr. Mominul Haque Sarkar sir and the Executive Director sir. Both of them gave the same advice. This incident ends here. I should not tell anyone.
Later, dredging was carried out in that area of the Yamuna River, but the dredging did not yield any benefit.
