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UK Treasury and Anti-Corruption Minister Tulip Siddiq has stepped down following extensive media coverage regarding her connections to corruption allegations involving her aunt, the ousted former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, as well as inquiries into the funding of properties owned by Siddiq’s family in the UK.
After the general election in July, Prime Minister Keir Starmer appointed the 42-year-old Siddiq to oversee financial services policy, a role that encompassed the implementation of strategies to address money laundering.
In a letter addressed to Starmer on Tuesday, Siddiq expressed her decision to resign, stating that the controversy surrounding her familial ties and the inquiries into the financing of London apartments would likely divert attention from the government’s work.
She is the second minister from the Labour government to resign from Starmer’s cabinet in two months, following Transport Secretary Louise Haigh, amid a decline in the Prime Minister’s approval ratings since he assumed office.
In December, Siddiq was implicated in a corruption investigation in Bangladesh alongside her family and Hasina’s daughter, Saima Wazed, who serves as the World Health Organization’s Southeast Asia chief, regarding allegations of misappropriation of funds from infrastructure projects in Dhaka.
Specifically, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of Bangladesh has indicated that it is probing the family for their alleged involvement in the embezzlement of $5 billion linked to the construction of a power plant in Rooppur, located 160 kilometers (99 miles) northwest of Dhaka, as well as for fraudulently acquiring plots in a diplomatic zone near the capital.
On Monday, the ACC announced that it had formally filed charges against the family.
