THE government was robbed of around Tk 7.04 crore while making and purchasing subpar shields given to foreign friends and organisations as presents for their outstanding contribution to the country’s Liberation War, reported a local daily .The report of the investigation committee, formed to identify people involved in making and purchasing substandard shields, held former state minister for Liberation War Affairs Ministry AB Tajul Islam and 12 others of his ministry responsible. The shields made of wood, gold and silver hardly had any precious metals in them. The American Oak wood used as casings for the shields were also of poor quality and some of them got bent. The investigation committee led by Dhaka Divisional Commissioner Zillur Rahman submitted the report to the Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque on Thursday, as mentioned in the report.The ministry formed the committee after the media, referring to a Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institute (BSTI) test of the shields, reported that the BSTI in 2012 found that each shield only had 2.363 grams of gold and 466.237 gram of brass. The policy for making the shields which was signed by AB Tajul Islam himself on September 9, 2012, says every shield would be made with 22.5 grams of gold and 339 grams of silver. The government ended up giving foreign friends poor quality shields even though it had paid a high price to have a good quantity of precious metals in them. Quoting the probe report, a source in the probe committee said the government incurred a loss of Tk 7.04 crore. The Ministry had paid over Tk 11.2 crore for 338 shields given to foreign friends. Only one of them, the one given to the Indian former prime minister Indira Gandhi, had all the precious materials it was supposed to have.While some members of the 12 found responsible were made OSDs this does not change the underlying condition that these people have directly wreaked havoc on the country’s honour and reputation. Foreign friends and well-wishers who had helped our efforts in the War of Independence deserved the highest respect and honour. While it is true that precious metals do not enhance the honour of a medal or citation it is also true that they have tremendous symbolic value and thus are often used when medals or awards are given. By giving our foreign friends medals of substandard quality we have dishonoured them and remain dishonoured ourselves because of our inability to honour them properly by giving them gifts of high quality. It is surely not too much to expect our public servants to have a certain veracity in their dealings with our very good friends from all over the world.
