DHAKA: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was learnt to have asked her ministers and party MPs to be sincere in discharging their duties or else none would be spared if found guilty.

“I won’t spare anybody if found guilty,” she was quoted as saying in a note of warning during Monday’s regular cabinet meeting.

The PM’s forewarning comes, incidentally, amid reports of wrongdoing in some cases using the name of the ruling party.

Sheikh Hasina also said, “It will be wrong if someone thinks that action against any offender belonging to the party will damage image of the party as well as the government.”  

“No wrongdoer will go unpunished, even if that tarnishes party image,” she said, making her message loud and clear as to what may be up in the air.

Earlier on Sunday, the Awami League chief warned her party leaders and activists in the same vein at a discussion held at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre.

A source in the cabinet meeting said the premier also had some harsh words about the activities of the recalcitrant main opposition, BNP, who are now in an anti-government movement.    

She said they are “trying to do politics showing Arafat Rahman Koko as sick”.

Raising a question, PM Hasina said, “If Tareque and Koko are so sick, why then their mother Begum Khaleda Zia isn’t going abroad to see them?”

“How come her sons are admitted to hospitals and she never went there to see them! It’s not acceptable that she has no money for plane fare,” Hasina said.

A source in the meeting said the PM rejected a proposal for increasing toll for use of the Jamuna Bridge, placed by the World Bank.

On the contrary, there have been pleas from different quarters for reducing or even waiving the toll if the cost recovery is complete, in order to make travels and trade and business cheaper.        
 
BDST: 1825 HRS, AUGUST 23, 2010