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Bangladesh official responds to $29 million USAID grant: 'Money not in our records'
The NGO Affairs Bureau is a Bangladeshi government agency that provides services to NGOs operating with foreign assistance.
Reacting to the US President Donald Trump slashing USAID funding worth 29 million dollars meant for Bangladesh, the country’s NGO Affairs Bureau has said that it does not have any record of any such donation. The funding was allegedly meant to strengthen the political landscape in Bangladesh.
Director General of the NGO Affairs Bureau, Md Anwar Hossain, told news agency ANI that they do not have any record of the said 29 million dollars donation. “Donald Trump said about $29 million dollars, but we did not identify that amount has come through our NGO Affairs Bureau,” he said.
“If they can tell which NGOs are involved, then we can identify them, but overall, we can see that the amount of money is not yet seen in our NGO Affairs records," he added.
The NGO Affairs Bureau is a Bangladeshi government agency that provides services to NGOs operating with foreign assistance. It was founded in 1990 and currently has 2,640 NGOs registered with it.
The reaction comes after Donald Trump’s administration froze USAID funding for several nations, allegedly including 21 million dollars to India for “voter turnout”.
Explaining how the USAID funding helped Bangladesh, Hossain said, “... USAID mostly helps with Rohingyas, these projects are emergency projects and are not suspended…More than 76 NGOs are not only receiving USAID money but also donations from US-based donors.”
At this time, the suspension of aid hasn’t impacted them much, however, if the US decides to fully cut the funding, then the impact can really be determined, Hossain added.
He also said that the NGO Affairs Bureau can only keep track of foreign donations if they are made directly to the registered NGOs. “But the USAID brings in money through government channels and then the amount is distributed to agencies, it is not reflected in our NGO affairs books,” he said.
What Trump said
Donald Trump’s administration, on the suggestions of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, slashed USAID funding worth millions meant for several countries. He said that 29 million dollars were sent to Bangladesh to strengthen the country’s political landscape through a firm that "nobody ever heard of.”
"Can you imagine you have a little firm. You get 10,000 here, 10,000 there, and then we get 29 million USD from the US government. They had two people working in that firm, two people, I think they're very happy, they're very rich," Trump had said on Friday.
With ANI inputs.
