Two deputy and four additional Press secretaries in Bangladesh interim authority Chief Advisor Mohammad Yunus’ office got themselves an expensive upgrade – each of the six ‘officials’, mostly former journalists, now possess the latest iPhone model, the iPhone 16 Pro Max. And all at government expense.
An official note signed by at least three senior officials of the interim authority, including Administration Director General Mohammad Abdul Wadud Chowdhury and Director R H M Alaul Kabir approved the purchase of six iPhone Pro Max handsets.
These were to be procured for two deputy Press secretaries Abdul Kalam Azad Majumdar and Apurba Jahangir and four additional Press secretaries Faiyyaz Ahmed, Ashrofa Imdad, Suchismita Tithi and Naim Ali. The “official” price of an iPhone 16 Pro Max in Dhaka is said to be BDT 226,999, which is a neat BDT 1,361,994 or US$ 16,020.51.
It is not known which model or models the six Press secretaries to Yunus used before they switched to the latest iPhone model, but the note, in possession of Northeast News, says that file for the purchase of the Apple handsets was put up before Yunus who, officials said, approved it.
The reason for the purchase of the costliest iPhone model, mentioned in the note, is “important nature of their (Press secretaries’) work”. The note does not, however, mention whether Yunus’ chief Press secretary, former journalist Shafiqul Alam, also went in for a phone upgrade at state expense.
In recent times, some of the students’ coordinators who played a leading role in the movement that unseated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from power in August 2024, have been roundly criticised for corruption. Recently, one student coordinator, Asif Mahmud Sajib Bhuiyan, who is the Adviser in Bangladesh’s Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives ministry was found to have bent rules to pave the way for granting his father a licence as a building contractor.
The chief students’ coordinator for Chittagong, Khan Talat Mahmud Rafy has been found to have a Binance account where he is suspected to have deposited a large volume of money in bitcoins.
Many other students’ coordinators, including one who recently quit the interim authority to concentrate on the newly launched political outfit, National Citizens Party, are said to be running their businesses linked to sensitive government projects.
A close friend of this former adviser “fronts” this business. There have been allegations against other students’ leaders for leading ostentatious lives, including the use of expensive vehicles “lent” to them by businessmen with not-so-clean records.
Speaking to Northeast News, Dhaka-based political analyst Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah said “it was quite noticeable immediately after the August 2024 change in government that the students’ coordinators were more inclined towards making money and leading lavish lifestyles. Many of them appear to have invested unaccounted for money in land and other immovable property, which leads many to suspect that some of them may have undeclared bank accounts abroad”.
