A dozen of former minister, state ministers, whips and lawmakers, including former speaker and incumbent President Abdul Hamid had received 4,202 cft “segun wood” at a nominal price from the forests department during the previous Awami League led grand alliance government.
Minister for Environment and Forests Anwar Hossain Manju on Thursday disclosed this in Parliament while replying to a question from Jatiya Party lawmaker Kazi Firoz Rashid.
Two others were yet to receive such allocation and information about one state minister whether he received wood was not available.An owner of a furniture company told this correspondent that the price of per cft segun wood is over Tk 4,000 in Dhaka and Tk 2,200 in hill tracts but the ministers and lawmakers were allocated those at cost of Tk 585 per cft.
The minister informed the House that the department of forests had allocated a total of 5,252.35cft wood in favour of 15 minister, state ministers and whips during the last five years. Of them, 4,202 cft segun wood were disbursed among the ministers and lawmakers.
Those were allotted wood of forests department were former speaker Abdul Hamid, former minister for labour and employment Engineer Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, former state ministers—Cap (Retd) Tajul Islam, Shamsul Haque Tuku, Mahbubur Rahman, Begum Munnujan Sufian, Md Shajahan Miah, Md Abdul Hye, Md Motahar Hossain and Omar Faruk Chowdhury, chairman of Hill Tracts Development Board Bir Bahadur, chairman of Privatisation Board Dr Mirza Abdul Jalil, whips-ASM Firoze, Sagupta Yasmin and Mirza Azam.
Of them, Shamsul Haque Tuku and Omar Faruk Chowdhury were yet to receive their allocation and there is no information whether Shamsul haque Tuku was received the allocation.
On an average, about 350cft wood was allotted for each of the recipients.
Record shows that the forests department had received only Tk 24,58079 against the allocation of segun wood among the former ministers and lawmakers. – Staff Reporter
