Bangladesh embassy vows better services at new building

Abu Dhabi - Expats mark the 50th Independence Day of their homeland in Abu Dhabi

Bangladeshi expats on Friday marked their homeland’s 50th Independence Day at their mission’s new building in Abu Dhabi’s Embassies District.

Mohammad Abu Zafar, Bangladesh’s Ambassador to the UAE, hoisted the national flag with only embassy officials and a few community members in attendance because of Covid-19 precautionary measures. Flowers were offered in tribute to the Father of the Nation ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The ceremony was the first major event held at the embassy’s new building, since the mission moved its operations from a villa in the city to the diplomatic enclave earlier this year.

With an average of 500 people seeking consular and welfare assistance per day, shifting to a spacious building had been necessary to offer better services, the ambassador said. To avoid crowds, certain services have been outsourced to 40 typing centres, thereby reducing the number of daily visitors to about 200 to 300 people.

“They (typing centres) are doing the preliminary job of receiving the applications for different services,” Zafar told Khaleej Times.

The applications are then sent to the embassy where the officials from the concerned departments take further action. “Nowadays, we have 200 to 300 people mainly coming for welfare services and issues like unpaid salary of workers, court cases and other support.”

The building also has a community hall that can accommodate 200 people for events. The spacious terrace can host 300 people and it can be used for different purposes, like flag-raising ceremonies and other functions.

Such facilities will be needed when the embassy resumes ‘Eternal Mujib’ celebrations to mark the birth centenary of late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Year-long celebrations were supposed to be held from March 17 last year but had to be postponed because of the pandemic.

“We have extended the activities by nine months till the Victory Day (December 16).”

The ambassador noted after Ramadan, there will be activities to mark Eternal Mujib and the golden jubilee celebrations of Bangladesh and the UAE. “We would have certain programmes together,” he added.

ashwani@khaleejtimes.com

• Abu Dhabi