The National Board of Revenue yesterday said it was yet to defreeze the bank account of BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia as she had not applied for it.
NBR said it had de-frozen all the frozen bank accounts, including the account of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, as the account holder wanted it to be free. The tax authorities had ordered to freeze bank accounts of many politicians and their family members during the tenure of army-backed caretaker administration in 2007-08.
“We have de-frozen all the accounts following the letters from the account holders. But Khaleda had not applied for it,” NBR Chairman Golam Hossain told reporters.
She had not applied for the last 16 months in my tenure, he said.
The NBR in August 2007, asked all banks to freeze the accounts of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, her son Arafat Rahman Koko and nine others of her family.
The chairman also said: “ I have unofficially asked people from government and opposition if they apply, NBR will take steps to de-freeze their frozen accounts.”
“People just need to submit an unofficial letter to the NBR and we will defreeze their accounts accordingly,” he said.
However, refuting the NBR chairman’s statement, Khaleda Zia’s lawyer advocate Ahmed Azam Khan told the Dhaka Tribune that the statement was false and baseless.
“We applied for de-freezing the account two years back and constantly reminded the NBR on the update, but whenever we contact them, they inform us that they are waiting for an approval from the finance ministry,” he said.
The lawyer also said he had served the application to director general of Central Intelligence Cell of NBR which was later served to NBR chairman and then, it was forwarded to the finance ministry.
“Whenever we communicate with the DG of CIC, they said they were yet to get approval from the finance ministry,” he said.