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Daily Manab Zamin | ???? ????? ???????????
Translation of the article
BD’s FM Dr. Dipu Moni outperformed all other nation’s FM even US secretary of state in completing the most no. of foreign tours in a single term by a foreign minister in office (with couple months yet to go before her term in office ends).
In the 54 months since assuming office from 1st Feb 2009 to 13 July 2013, she toured 187 times, spending 600 days abroad (almost 1.6 years of the 4.5 years of awami regime). The FM of the most influential state in the world ,
Hillary Clinton visited 112 states spending 306 days abroad during her term in office while neighbouring India and Pakistan’s
FM S.M.Krishna and Hina rabbani khar couldn’t even cross the 100 mark in no. of days spent abroad. Its quite normal for Foreign ministers of influential world powers to spend continuous 25-30 days abroad but
no FM is known to have crossed the 400 mark.
Azerbaijan- US- Geneva tour: The most talked about tour of the FM is the recent tri nation tour of Azerbaijan- US- Geneva . On 13th june in a New York event held by UNESCO, she was the only foreign minister there among all the cultural affairs ministers present. To take part in a 20 min photo session she flew there in Turkish airlines from Baku. Then after having a slight snack in UN she flew to Geneva in Swiss air line.
Estimated cost of achieving the record: A research student of DU for his purpose of research asked for detail information regarding official reason of the tours and expenses under right to information act. He applied for the info in the beginning of last year and after many hurdles he got some info in the middle of june.
Even then no. of people accompanying the FM and expenses of each such person was not provided. Only expenses of the FM’s 112 tours from Jan 2009-Dec 2011 was provided. As per the info provided, including charges for Flight, Hotel Suits and official allowance
it totalled around TK 4. 46 cr. Even after that she did 75 more tours till 10 July 2013. As per one Foreign ministry official the
people who accompanied the FM in Azerbaijan- US- Geneva tour showed a bill of TK 5 lak/person . There were 4 people continuously accompanying her in the tour. FM obviously have more official privileges than normal officials which includes first class seat (if not then business class), moderate hotel suit, various types of allowance like transit, terminal, food, allowances for being leader of the representative team etc etc.
The tour expenses of the FM in the Azerbaijan- US- Geneva tour was 16 laks according to the official. The Foreign ministry receives such bills 2/3 times per month. As per one official who worked in the budget division of the ministry told Manabzamin ,that the expenses provided under the right to info act is solely the personal expenses of the minister which excludes the expenses of accompanying tour officials and media personalities.
If all those costs are included it would be around Tk 40 cr which may end up some 50 cr by the end of her term in office.
Only a handful of Bilateral tours: Only 17 out of the 187 tours were bilateral and 44 VIP visits (with president/PM). She toured London 20 times, in most cases without any specific reason . She toured US 16 times, Switzerland 11 times, Germany 4 times and many more series tours to the EU. She individually (excluding when she accompanied the PM) visited India 9 times. There are very few countries that she haven’t toured yet and most of the cases she visited each country 4-5 times. Eg : Indonesia, Turkey, Qatar, Myanmar, UAE, Maldives, Thailand, Egypt, China, Singapore, France,
Nigeria, Malaysia,
Cambodia, Srilanka, Portugal, Bhutan, Italy , Japan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Vietnam, Norway,
Cuba, South Africa, Syria,
Trinidad & Tobago, Denmark, Mauritius, Philippines, Nepal, Tajikistan,
Djibouti, Brazil,
Uganda, Belgium, Spain, Canada,
Lithuania, Australia, Oman, Brunei , Turkmenistan,
Latvia etc etc etc etc
This year so far she travelled 29 times. There is a scheduled 3 day private visit to India on 25th July. This would be her 188th tour. As per the schedule after returning from Delhi, she is set to tour KSA, China, Ukraine, Myanmar (VIP tour),
Costa Rica, US (for 68th UN general assembly) South Korea and India in the couple of months till the end of term in office.
Prospect of achieving double century: So far she toured 187 times. As per the PM , Parliament will be dissolved (uncertain due to CT issue & other issue regarding election) on 24 th October . If it is not dissolved then FM is set to complete double century in foreign tours on 11th Nov. As per schedule the 200th tour will be to Delhi for the foreign ministerial level meeting of Asia-Europe (ASEM).
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So what do U think of BD's rise in international politics? Would she be able to complete the double century?