Special Correspondent

Former state minister for ICT Junaid Ahmed Palak has committed thousands of crores of corruption in the IT sector of the country. He stole hundreds of crores of rupees from the budget with one project in the name of information technology development.

After becoming the state minister, his personal wealth increased manifold. There was no accountability in this sector. Transparency was also a problem. Because Palak did all the work by defaming the name of Sheikh Hasina's information technology advisor Sajib Wazed Joy who resigned from the post of Prime Minister. Because of his direct relationship with Joy, no one dared to speak. As a result, Palak has lost thousands of crores of taka in the last few years in the name of building digital Bangladesh and development of information technology sector.

Not only that, several sources said that this villain has smuggled the illegally earned money out of the country. But in the name of changing the government's information technology sector, he spent money on the project and became puffed up in a short time. He was a very trusted to Sajeeb Wazed Joy, no official, minister, audit department or even the Prime Minister's office would talk about the IT sector or Palak.

According to the information given in the affidavit during the last National Assembly elections, Junaid Ahmed Palak's assets and income both increased at an unusual rate in the last five years. Palak showed his wife as an entrepreneur to make his illegal income appear legitimate.

It is said that Palak started politics with empty hands. After that, he became the owner of thousands of crores of rupees. After starting her career as an assistant teacher in a government primary school and becoming an entrepreneur, within three to four years, wife Kanika has become the owner of around 5 crore rupees. which he mentioned in the affidavit.

Apart from this, multiple sources said that his wife owns at least another 20 crore taka. Although he showed in 2018 that his wife Kanika owns Tk 2 crore 68 lakh. The next year it increased to 3 crore 84 lakh.

Apart from this, Palak and Kanika couple have a huge amount of wealth in name and unname; which he earned illegally. These resources are mainly acquired through corruption in various government projects. The state minister and his family had to pay at least 15 percent of any project. No accountability was needed to take up projects in this sector. As a result, a huge amount of money was withdrawn from the budget by showing the implementation of the desired project. Palak used to get a large share of that.

In taking projects, they used to give work to their relatives and friends without any kind of verification. In 2008, the wealth of the Palak family was 15th century field land, 50,000 in the bank, 10,000 taka in cash, 10 loads of gold, a refrigerator worth 25,000 taka and a mobile phone worth 10,000 taka. After exactly five years, now he owns 80% of the shares of Vision Builders Limited Company. Now he has a savings certificate of Tk 20 lakh, a state-of-the-art private car worth Tk 23 lakh 20 thousand (Dhaka-Metro-G-33-0245). Gold 103 is loaded and cash is 10 lakh and 3 lakh 80 thousand 873 in the bank. After that he did not look back.

According to the information of the last affidavit submitted to the Election Commission, he has several hundred gold. There are hundreds of crores in cash. Apart from his wife, his mother, uncle, father-in-law, brother-in-law and loyal workers including his five star army, Palak bought hundreds of bighas of land anonymously and built mountains of wealth in and outside his constituency.

Palak's elder brother Zubair Ahmed Nayan recently took over his brother's tender, 650 ponds. At the same time, Palak was involved in numerous irregularities and corruption including job trade, black money, murder trade, transfer trade, extortion commission, private land allocation trade. Posters were also printed in the area in the name of Palak and his family members about these irregularities and corruption.

There are also several cases in the Anti-Corruption Commission regarding the corruption of various projects undertaken by his Ministry during his tenure as State Minister; About which Palak has appeared to the ACC several times.

Sources said, he has allegedly huge movable and immobile properties in home and abroad. He was close aide of Sheikh Hasina's son Sajeeb Wazed Joy and always used his name to influence the ICT Ministry.