Govt seeks money launderers information

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal says that he does not have any information on people involved in money laundering from Bangladesh.

Kamal called on the opposition to provide the government with any information it had on the matter. “I don’t have a list of those who are taking away the money,” Kamal said in parliament on Monday in response to the opposition’s remarks on money laundering.

“Give me the names. It will make our work easier.”

The finance minister claimed the government was making active efforts to stop money laundering: “Many people are in jail. They are being tried. It isn’t like the past, when the practice was overwhelming.”

“One bank manager is taking money from another bank and sending it abroad,” alleged Jatiya Party MP Kazi Firoz Rashid.

“Set up branches of the [Anti-Corruption Commission] in Canada, Malaysia and Australia. Then you will see how much money they have taken. PK Halder stole so much! You say you were nine minutes late in catching him, why couldn’t you catch him nine hours earlier?”

In response to the criticism, Kamal said: “I feel the same way you do when I hear that the hard-earned money of our country’s people is being spirited abroad. I also stand against disorder and disarray. We all want these incidents to stop.”

“In the past they would buy sand while calling it cement, but now there isn’t as much under-invoicing or over-invoicing. I won’t say it has stopped, but you don’t see it in the media as much as you used to.”

“The syphoning off people’s hard-earned money hurts me like others. I’m always against any irregularity, disorder and corruption in any place under any circumstances. We all and our government want these to be stopped,” the finance minister said,

He said there was a time when sand used to be imported in the name of cement and one product used to be brought in the name of another product. “Now under-invoicing and over-invoicing are hardly done. But I don’t say such things have stopped completely. We hardly see these things in the newspaper,” he added.

Kamal said he knows how such irregularities are committed but does not know who are doing these. “Once such things had happened due to inefficient systems and ineffective management. These things will have to be stopped completely.”

He said the government will frame new laws aiming to reform the systems in the financial sector. “We’ll enact new laws so that our banks and financial institutions can run their activities smoothly with responsibility. We’ll create the scope. I’m assuring you.”

The finance minister said there is a zero-tolerance policy against corruption as asked by the Prime Minister.