The National Board of Revenue will soon deliver a decision on unfreezing the bank accounts of Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) Chairperson Khaleda Zia, which has been frozen since 2007.
NBR Chairman Md Ghulam Hussain has said this while responding to reporters queries at a programme in the capital on Wednesday morning.
“We will decide on the matter very soon,” Hussain said.
However, the chairman has declined to make any further comments on the matter.
All the bank accounts belonging to Khaleda Zia has been in a frozen situation since 2007. Currently, Khaleda Zia is allowed to withdraw only Tk50,000 a month from the frozen account to pay her expenses.
The central intelligence cell of NBR in August 2007 froze the bank accounts of Khaleda Zia and Awami League chief and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during the tenure of the army-backed caretaker administration in 2007-08 while bank accounts of many other politicians and their family members were also frozen.
Later, the NBR de-freezed many of the accounts including the bank account of Sheikh Hasina following their requests.
However, Khaleda Zia has been claiming that her bank account was yet to be un-freezed though she had applied for it in many occasions.
Recently, BNP chief’s lawyer Ahmed Azam Khan met the NBR chairman and requested to de-freeze the bank accounts.
“The NBR chairman has assured me that the body would seek opinion from the finance and law ministry on the matter and will let me know,” Khan told Dhaka Tribune last week.