PM warns cabinet members: Stern action if allegations found

 
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday cautioned her cabinet members that stern action would be taken if allegations were found against any of the cabinet members.

Sheikh Hasina asked her cabinet members to take full charge of their respective ministries within seven days and work hard with honesty to fulfil the election pledges.

The Prime Minister gave the instruction during one and half an hours long meeting with the ministers, state ministers and advisers to the PM at her secretariat office.

After the meeting, Commerce Minister Col (retd) Farook Khan told the waiting reporters that the Prime Minister reminded all that appropriate action will be taken in case of any allegation against any minister."

In reply to a question about transport cost, he said it would be come down with the reduction in the diesel price. To another question, Col (retd) Farooq said there would be no problem in working with bureaucrats if all discharge their respective duties as per rules.

Hasina's press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told reporters that the cabinet would meet every Monday at the Cabinet Division Conference room. In another meeting with the secretaries of different ministries and divisions Sheikh Hasina asked instructed the top civil servants to work fearlessly and neutrally for the welfare of the people and to make the country poverty free.

She also assured the secretaries that they would not face any impediment or pressure in the way of their neutral activities.

"You must be careful that there is no partisanship when you do your job", she said. She asked them to work in compliance with rules and regulations to fulfil the AL's election the pledges to the people and to ensure good governance.

"If the law itself becomes a hurdle to discharge works for public welfare, it will be amended. I do not want to hear that you cannot implement public welfare projects for legal obstacles. I want you all to finish work according to rule without any files left," she said.

Hasina said she was not happy about the pace of implementation of Annual Development Programme which stood at just 18 percent in the first six months of the current fiscal. "The pace of progress should be higher. With such a slow ADP implementation rate, the country will not progress. The government wants to increase the rate of ADP implementation to 90-95 percent in the next fiscal, " she said.

She directed the secretaries to send a list to her office regarding the projects to be implemented and projects they would not be able to implement in the next six months.

The meeting of Executive Committee of the National Economic Council would be held on Tuesdays. "The meeting will review budget", she said.

She pointed out the country did not see the desired progress in the last 38 years after independence. The rate of literacy did not rise and the rate of poverty did not decline sufficiently, she noted.

She said people cast their vote freely in the election and got opportunity t