Dhaka, Oct. 13 -- A government project that set out to train young Bangladeshis to build mobile apps and video games has ended up spending nearly half its budget making animated films about ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her family.

The flagship "Mobile Game and Application Skill Development Project", launched in 2016 under the ICT Division with promises to create a new generation of digital innovators, allegedly diverted more than Tk 1.46 billion of its Tk 3.01 billion budget to film and holographic productions.

A new audit by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) has branded the shift a "wastage of public money", saying the project lost sight of its main purpose while failing to produce commercially via...