
State Minister Tarana yet to join new office after transfer from telecom to information
Senior Correspondent, bdnews24.com
Published: 2018-01-04 22:07:41.0 BdST Updated: 2018-01-04 23:05:18.0 BdST
The information ministry has readied State Minister Tarana Halim’s office, but she is yet to join her new workplace after the Cabinet shake-up.
Amid speculations about her leave of absence, she did not take phone calls until Thursday.
Earlier, the media reported that she was upset about her transfer from the post and telecommunications ministry to the information ministry.
Kazi Keramat Ali MP, the newly appointed state minister for vocational and madrasa education, is also yet to join his new workplace, for ‘personal reasons’.
Jatiya Party leader Anisul Islam Mahmud and Anwar Hossain Manju have not joined their new offices after the exchange of their portfolios, water resources, and environment and forests, respectively.
Jatiya Party (JP) leader Manju, however, attended the inauguration of a project of his new ministry at the Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday.
Tarana lost post and telecoms when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reshuffled her Cabinet after four were sworn in on Tuesday with a year left of the current government.
When actress-cultural activist Tarana was made state minister for post and telecoms, the ministry did not have a minister two and a half years ago.
Now she has been sent to the information ministry, where Hasanul Haq Inu is the minister.
“I won’t say why there is no state minister for telecoms now,” Musatafa Jabbar, the newly appointed post, telecommunications and IT minister, told the media on Wednesday.
“It was beyond my imagination that the telecom division has problems like cancer and there had been no initiatives to resolve them,” he said.
When Tarana was at the posts and telecoms ministry, its dispute with the regulators BTRC came out in the public.
New Minister Jabbar has said he will cooperate with the BTRC, rather than controlling it.
Tarana sat at her Secretariat office for the last time on Dec 27.
She had been scheduled to speak at a news briefing on the achievements of the Posts and Telecommunications Division in past two years on Wednesday.
But she postponed it on Tuesday night citing ‘unavoidable reasons’ after the speculations on the Cabinet reshuffle spread.
On Thursday, officials at the Posts and Telecommunications Division said they could not even bid official farewell to Tarana as she did not come.

Information ministry officials ready the office for State Minister Tarana Halim
Tarana did not take calls when bdnews24.com tried to contact her for her comments on the leave.
Employees of the information ministry were seen preparing a room for Tarana on Thursday.
Environment and forests ministry spokesperson Mostafa Kamal Pasha told bdnews24.com new Minister Anisul did not come on Thursday.
Education ministry Public Relations Officer Afrazur Rahman said new State Minister Kazi Keramat did not join office as he had gone to Gopalganj.
Another official at the ministry said the state minister was yet to say whether he would sit at the Secretariat or at a nearby building where the vocational and madrasa education board officials work.
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