FROM KUWAIT:  Major General Mohammad Ashab Uddin ndc, psc (retd), a professional military officer, has turned into a capable and efficient diplomat while appointed to Bangladesh embassy in Kuwait on September 17 in 2013.

He has skillfully welded a strong relation between Bangladesh and Kuwait with honesty, hard work and sheer patriotism and has brilliantly been leading the Bangladesh community to a better picture since his appointment.

“Accountability and transparency are the mantra of Bangladesh embassy in Kuwait. Transparence looks like a glass of water. A user-friendly embassy,” the ambassador told banglanews.

“The expatriates were not treated properly with respect previously in the embassy. But the old days are gone; things have changed around this place. Whoever comes to this embassy, the employees are ordered to treat them with courtesy regardless the expatriates’ socio-economic condition. I have brought some changes and it has worked,” Ashab Uddin added.

The envoy has stood strongly against the habit of procrastination of the embassy employees. It has stopped the harassment of the laborers. Besides installing a helpdesk, the embassy has opened six different telephone numbers of 24 hours hotline services along other digital services like fax, email, website and social networking sites.

He opined, “Expatriates are the main concern. We need to know and meet their needs and solve their problems upon a cup of tea”.

“Few days ago, we were informed that an expatriate were tortured and harassed by a local police officer, we took necessary steps which didn’t simply led to the arrest and imprisonment of that police but all expenses of the treatment of that expatriate were paid by them as well,” proudly continued the envoy.
 
The ambassador had eradicated the implicit of extra payments in the consulate.

“First of all, I made this embassy user-friendly. Embassy is for the people. People are not for the embassy. The government pays us to serve the people. We finalized MRP works within the given time, which is a record.”

“Every counter has printed information about the consulate fee for their respective services. We have created awareness by distributing posters and handbills to ensure transparent deals between the consulate and the expats.”

Mohammad Ashab Uddin has also worked over the moral issues of the laborers. He opined, “I have focused mostly on building self-confidence and consciousness of the expats’ own rights”.
He took immediate actions against the ill-behavior with the Bangladeshi laborers in the airport.  The laborers were treated inhumanly as they were given to sit in the floor like cattle unlike other passengers.

The Bangladesh envoy called upon the General in-charge and told him, “We will ask your citizens to sit on the floor when they will visit our country, as you did. Your people separate them shouting ‘Bangal’ or ‘Bangladeshi’ from the other passengers and then mistreats with my laborers!”

The General has immediately ordered his subordinates to see the matter and said that it will not happen again.

The ambassador has started another way to honor and rekindle the zeal of humanity and patriotism by adding a few lines on the death certificates of the laborers of Bangladesh.

After the name and the date of the dead laborer, it says, ‘He has contributed in the economic growth of Bangladesh. We cherish his contribution with gratitude’ and with a signature of the ambassador.

The envoy has also arranged cultural exchange between Bangladesh and Kuwait. It has changed the mindset of Kuwait’s officials about the image of Bangladesh. 

Now, he is trying to make a job market for the professionals in Kuwait as the payment is quite good comparing to other major expat-based countries.

The ambassador encourages cultural practice and food festivals among the expatriates community. A community school has opened. All kinds of political meetings are impermissible in the embassy.

“I just want to say one thing. No faction among the Bangladeshis though we are in a foreign land. We are one, we are all just Bangladeshi here”, the man with vision Major General Mohammad Ashab Uddin ndc, psc (retd) concluded.

BDST: 1417 HRS, DEC 06, 2015
AIK/RS/RR/SMS