The regular weekly cabinet meeting on Monday witnessed a heated discussion over an unscheduled issue of BNP chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia’s house rent.Several senior ministers, including Housing and Public Works Minister Engineer Mosharraf Hossain, took part in the unscheduled debate during the cabinet meeting held at Bangladesh Secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.Industries Minister Ameer Hossain Amu, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, Foreign Minister Mahmood Ali and Law Minister Anisul Haque, among others, participated in the discussion.The issue came up for discussion following a report ran by a newspaper on Sunday which said that Khaleda Zia could not pay her house rent for last three years due to shortage of money. Taking part in the discussion, Anisul Haque said Khaleda Zia has been trying to create a new issue raising the house rent matter finding no other way to ignite the anti-government movement, meeting sources said.Some minister also observed that Khaleda Zia has been trying to achieve sympathy of the countrymen raising the house rent issue. They also asked to properly inquire the matter whether it was a part of conspiracy. Sheikh Hasina, however, refrained from making any comment over the issue in the meeting. But she (PM) asked the concerned ministry to investigate into the matter, the sources said. It is to be noted that the Anti-corruption Commission [ACC] during the tenure of caretaker government on July 17, 2007 served notice on Khaleda Zia to submit her wealth statement as part of filing graft cases against her.Besides, the National Board of Revenue [NBR] in August 2007 asked all banks to freeze the accounts of Khaleda Zia, her son Arafat Rahman Koko and nine others of her family. Khaleda Zia can withdraw Tk 50,000 per month from the bank, but her appeal to allow withdrawing Tk 250,000 per month by de-freezzing the bank accounts is yet to be considered by the NBR.Since vacating Cantonment’s house in 2010, Khaleda Zia has been residing at an apartment house at Gulshan at a rent of Tk 200, 000 per month.On April 8, 2009, the cabinet cancelled the allotment of Khaleda Zia’s house at Shaheed Mainul Road in Dhaka Cantonment due to numerous anomalies.Former military dictator HM Ershad had allotted the house to Khaleda Zia and her two sons after the assassination of her husband, former president Ziaur Rahman, who used to live in that house as a marshal law administrator.
