The LGRD minister has said it was Sheikh Hasina who helped Muhammad Yunus get the Nobel Peace Prize by making him familiar globally.
'Had our prime minister Sheikh Hasina not introduced Muhammad Yunus at the Global Microcredit Summit in Washington, the economist would not become so familiar and win the Nobel Prize,' Syed Ashraful Islam said on Saturday.
Addressing a programme in the city, he said, 'She [Hasina] had also introduced microcredit worldwide through the [first] global summit in Washington [in 1997] in presence of the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, the then US first lady, and the Queen Sophia of Spain and many more.'
'Our country is a place of history distortions, and everyone forgets these,' he told the programme, organised at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre, marking the 12 years of Palli Daridra Bimochon Foundation.
Hasina inaugurated the programme, addressed, among others, by state minister for LGRD Jahangir Kabir Nanak and chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry Mohammad Rahmat Ali.
Known as microcredit pioneer, Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Grameen Bank, for their contributions to establishing peace through efforts to create economic and social development.
The government removed the Nobel laureate as the managing director of the bank early this year and he lost all the legal battles subsequently.
The Bangladesh Bank relieved him for flouting rules when he was reappointed in 1999, and the prime minister and many leaders in the ruling party criticised him sharply.
Without naming Yunus, Ashraf said the word 'microcrdit' was not invented by any particular economist. 'It was PDBF which introduced it. If Nobel Prize is given for microcredit, it should go to PDBF.'
The then Awami League government founded PDBF in November, 1999 and then prime minister Sheikh Hasina launched its activities on July 9 the next year.
The organisation has been working for the elimination of rural poverty by ensuring social development, men-women equality and women's empowerment. Starting its activities in 139 upazilas, PDBF has now spread over 208 upazilas with 253 branches.
The LGRD minister also criticised the past BNP-Jamaat alliance government for 'holding back its all activities'.
Calling upon all to come forward for rural development, he said, 'Bangabandhu [Sheikh Mujib] had dreamt of a golden Bengal, not golden Dhaka. It was not supposed to be that high-rises will be built in and cars will ply Dhaka only. Development must be there in rural areas, too.'
Joynab Bibi, a beneficiary of PDBF from Jamalpur, shared her good experiences of becoming self-reliant through small loans she had taken from the organisation.
She had her son graduated and married off her two daughters on completion of their secondary education through the income generated from her agricultural farm.
'We've managed to change our fate through PDBF loans. Now we can arrange our foods and clothes. No one takes away our cattlehead for failure to repay our loan instalments,' a happy Joynab told the programme.
She also alleged that different micro-financing organisations, including Grameen Bank, repress the borrowers for realising the loan instalments.
With the rural development and cooperatives secretary Mihir Kanti Mojumder in the chair, the programme was also addressed by PDBF managing director Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman.
Six of the most successful PDBF beneficiaries, six meritorious children of the beneficiaries and as many best employees were given awards and cash reward at the function.
Source : New Age
