Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud has opined that the report published by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) on activities of the 10th national parliament is not accurate.
"The TIB report is lopsided and ill-motivated because the data contains numerous errors," he said.
The minister was addressing a discussion arranged by the Trinamool BNP marking the 44th death anniversary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the National Mourning day at the National Press Club on Thursday.
Hasan said: "We have seen in the past that TIB publishes purposeful report. When the construction of Padma Bridge project first started, the World Bank (WB) launched an investigation over corruption while the TIB, going one step further, published a whole report on it.
However, it was proven later that the WB's corruption allegation in was false and fabricated. Thus, TIB should have apologized to the nation for their report but they have not, he said.
"TIB publishes different reports at different times and they contain a lot of errors. We want criticism as it helps us to do the right thing, but we do not want biased criticism. One-sided criticism misguides the nation and destroys democracy."
We hope that TIB will publish its report with correct information and apologize to the nation for the incorrect ones, Hasan added.
Trinamool BNP and Bangladesh Nationalist Front (BNF) Chairman Barrister Nazmul Huda presided over the meeting attended by other leaders of the party.
TIB report on 10th parliament
The organization, in its report, said the quorum crisis in the 10th national parliament has caused a financial loss equivalent to more than Tk163.57 crore.
Moreover, though law formulation is the main purpose of the parliament, the last parliament only used 12% of its total time for this purpose, the study said.
TIB came up with the statistics in their report titled “Parliament Watch” at a press conference in its Dhaka head office on Wednesday.
