Central bank asked to probe allegations

The government has instructed the Bangladesh Bank to investigate the allegation that the country lost $75 billion due to trade misinvoicing and other unrecorded outflows between 2005 and 2014, State Minister for Finance and Planning M Abdul Mannan told parliament yesterday.

Replying to a query from an MP, Mannan also asked all to remain alert so that such incidents of theft are not repeated.

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The government would not hesitate to take legal action to prevent any recurrence of such incidents, he warned.

The state minister also said, “In the present era of free-flowing information, we get flawed information along with the genuine ones.

“But I am not rejecting outright that a huge amount of money was siphoned out of the country as published by different media outlets,” Mannan said, adding, “The government has asked the financial intelligence unit of the Bangladesh Bank to investigate the matter.”

The government would extend all necessary support to the unit in this regard, he added.

Meanwhile, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal lawmaker Mayeen Uddin Khan Badal yesterday demanded that Finance Minister AMA Muhith came up with a reply in parliament over the matter.

“Stop your [finance minister] other activities and come up in parliament with your reply,” he said while speaking in the House on a point of order.

“Bangladesh won't be able to become a middle-income country from a lower-middle income one, if we can't stop such incidents in future. Rather, the country would go backwards.”

Badal also said, ”We will remain hostage to money theft if we can't stop money laundering.”

Coming down hard on the finance minister, Badal said it was unfortunate that such incidents of money laundering took place during the past eight years of Awami League's rule.

“It's not a good sign that we are remaining silent over the money laundering issue. We are saying that development works are taking place in the country. But all the development activities would not bring anything good if such practices stay,” he added.

Bangladesh lost between $6 billion and $9 billion to illicit money outflows in 2014, according to a Global Financial Integrity (GFI) report.

Bangladesh lost $75 billion due to trade misinvoicing and other unrecorded outflows between 2005 and 2014, says the report released by the Washington-based research and advisory organisation on Monday.