Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has asked the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to hand over all records relating to tax exemptions, donations, and grants given to two organizations linked to former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s children: Saima Wazed’s Shuchona Foundation and Sajeeb Wazed Joy’s Center for Research and Information (CRI). In a letter sent Sunday (13 July), ACC Deputy Director Md. Monirul Islam requested the documents by Monday (14 July).

The ACC specifically seeks files on the 2016 and 2023 NBR statutory orders that exempted the Shuchona Foundation from income tax and waived tax on donations made in its favor. Investigators also asked for the names, designations, and contact details of all officials responsible for storing those documents.

The ACC says Saima Wazed and others are suspected of misappropriating millions in corporate social-responsibility (CSR) funds from banks, while CRI trustees—including Sajeeb Wazed—and other family members allegedly caused state losses by using public money to advance political agendas. A seven-member ACC team is probing the case.

In February this year, the NBR revoked Shuchona’s tax-free status. On 20 March, the ACC filed a case against Saima Wazed and former EXIM Bank chairman Nazrul Islam Majumder, alleging that twenty banks were coerced in 2017 into donating about Tk 330 million (≈ US$3 million) from their CSR funds to Shuchona, with no accounting of how the money was spent. The ACC says a raid in January found no operational office for the foundation and flagged suspicious transactions in its bank accounts.

The ACC also filed a separate case against Saima Wazed for allegedly falsifying credentials in her successful bid to become WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia.

Both Shuchona, founded in 2014 to work on autism and neuro-developmental disabilities, and CRI are now under close scrutiny as the ACC gathers financial records to determine whether tax privileges and donations were improperly obtained or misused.