By Mizan Rahman

Dhaka

The Bangladesh government has moved to review the status of frozen bank accounts of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Khaleda Zia.

Official sources said the ministry of finance wrote a letter to the Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) seeking to know about the status of Zia’s accounts frozen six years ago.

The NBR is yet to take any decision on unfreezing the bank accounts as demanded by the BNP, as NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain is travelling abroad, a senior NBR official said.

The CIC had frozen bank accounts of both BNP chairperson Zia and Awami League chief and incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2007 after the political changeover during the regime of the last caretaker
government.

Talking to newsmen, BNP chairperson’s tax lawyer Ahmed Azam Khan said they had applied for unfreezing the bank accounts of Zia in 2011 but got no response yet.

“It is intriguing that the bank accounts of the Awami League president have been unfrozen just one year after the freezing but the BNP chairperson is still waiting for a decision even after seven years,” he added.

A total of eight bank accounts of Zia have been frozen by the CIC. Pensions of late president Ziaur Rahman and house rents of Zia are being deposited with two of those frozen bank accounts.

A senior tax official said the NBR had unfrozen the bank accounts of Hasina following a written application, signed by her, but Zia had never applied for it.

He, however, acknowledged that there should not be any barrier to unfreezing the
accounts of Zia.

“The taxmen may review the legal aspects of unfreezing the accounts of Zia,” he added.

The issue came up for discussion in a recent cabinet meeting where some ministers favoured unfreezing the accounts while some others
did not.

Currently, the CIC allows Zia to withdraw a monthly amount of 50,000 taka (US$641) from the frozen bank accounts, which, according to the BNP, is insufficient to meet her expenditure.

At a press briefing, the party leaders claimed the former prime minister had been facing a financial crisis and unable to pay her house rents.