The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has decided to investigate the alleged purchase of a doctorate degree by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
It will also look into foreign trips that led to the wastage of hundreds of crores of state funds.
During a briefing on Thursday afternoon, ACC Director General (Prevention) Md Akhtar Hossain shared the investigation details.
He said that when Sheikh Hasina traveled abroad, she used public funds to rent flights from Bangladesh Airlines and often took large entourages.
The ACC will also probe the alleged misuse of state funds for foreign trips, amounting to hundreds of crores.
Over her 16 years in power, she attended the United Nations General Assembly almost every year as the head of state, always bringing a large delegation to New York. In 2015, she attended the 70th General Assembly and a UN summit on sustainable development with a delegation of 227 people. The numbers were 178 in 2014 and 134 in 2013.
Akhtar Hossain further revealed that Sheikh Hasina traveled on modern Boeing 777 and 787 aircraft for these foreign trips.
Between 2019 and mid-2024, the state agency organized 48 VVIP flights for Tk250 crore. Sheikh Hasina reportedly spent nearly Tk200 crore on these trips. On September 18, 2021, she left Helsinki's Vantaa International Airport aboard a Bangladesh Airlines VVIP flight BG-1902 to New York.
Sources revealed that instead of flying directly from Dhaka, the flight made a stop in Finland, where additional expenses, including two days of landing charges and costs for her entourage, resulted in an extra expenditure of seven crore in foreign currency. As of 2023, the airline still owes nearly Tk50 crore to the government.
Additionally, the ACC official noted that Sheikh Hasina had obtained fake doctorate degrees from various universities. Among the notable fake degrees are those from Tripura University in India, the Catholic University of Brussels in Belgium, and Visva-Bharati University in India.
Many of the medals and degrees she obtained were allegedly acquired through large expenditures or agreements that violated national interests.
In response to a question from a journalist, Akhtar Hossain confirmed that the decision to begin a public inquiry was based on the findings from the ACC’s intelligence investigation.
