A day after the WHO regional committee recommended termination of her appointment as regional director for the South-East Asia Region, Saima Wazed, daughter of ousted Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina, resigned from the post on Sept 9. Wazed’s resignation came amid probe by the UN health agency and Bangladesh authorities into allegations against her, which include those of financial fraud and forgery. She has denied the charges. The WHO said the recommendation for her termination was due to be considered by its executive board.Wazed was elected regional director by WHO’s South-East Asia Regional Committee in Nov 2023 for a five-year term beginning Feb 2024. According to reports, she was placed on unpaid leave in 2025 after Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commission filed cases against her alleging fraud and forgery. WHO subsequently investigated allegations regarding her travel expenses and academic credentials.According to a letter from Wazed’s lawyers to WHO quoted by media reports, the agency accused her of financial fraud relating to travel to China and misrepresentation of her academic credentials. She has denied the allegations, saying the travel issue stemmed from an administrative error by an assistant and involved an amount of $901. On her academic credentials, she said she held an honorary doctorate for her work on autism in Bangladesh and had been transparent about the same.Wazed also denied WHO’s charge that she had acquired a plot of land in Bangladesh. In her resignation letter to WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Hasina’s daughter said she had acquired the land before joining WHO and was entitled to it under Bangladeshi law.TOI tried to contact Wazed for her response, but there was none till the time of going to press. In her letter, Wazed claimed she had lost trust and confidence in the WHO leadership, and alleged that she was prevented from effectively carrying out her duties. The WHO rejected her charges and claimed that the issue had been handled through its established processes, with “fairness and due process”.
