Legal process underway to bring home laundered money: Finance minister

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Tuesday told parliament that legal proceedings are underway to recover the money laundered from the country.

The recovery of laundered money takes a long time due to various procedural and legal complications, he said in reply to a tabled question from Jatiya Party MP Mashiur Rahman Ranga.

"Determining the amount of laundered money is very difficult. Various organisations use different methodologies to estimate the amount of money smuggled out of the country but none of them can claim they are accurate."

"We are now moving based on specific information," he added.

Regardless of the scale or amount of money laundered from the country, the government is determined to stop the possible sources of money laundering as well as bring the money back to Bangladesh, Mustafa Kamal said.

To this end, all the government agencies are working together, he added and hoped that money laundering will reduce to a large extent in the future.

The finance minister said the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit has been collecting information from foreign financial intelligence agencies about smugglers or smuggled money and providing it to various investigating agencies including the Anti-Corruption Commission, CID of Bangladesh Police and the National Board of Revenue.

Several cases related to buying flats or houses in different other countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, United Kingdom, USA and Canada are currently under investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission, he noted and added that proceedings of several cases related to money laundering filed by the CID are ongoing. 

In response to a question from Workers Party MP Lutfun Nesa Khan, the finance minister said Bangladesh is far below the risk limit as per the percentage of foreign debt-GDP. "The economy of Bangladesh is at a risk-free and satisfactory level in terms of foreign loans." 

On the recovery of non-performing loans, the finance minister said 217 people have been sent to jail for defaulting on loans during the tenure of the current government. "The incident of taking 12 farmers to jail for defaulting on loans in Pabna is related to Bangladesh Samabay Bank. It is not a scheduled bank under Bangladesh Bank."

No new pay scale, dearness allowance for govt employees right now

In reply to a tabled question from Gonoforum MP Mokabbir Khan, Kamal said the government has no plan to announce a new pay scale or dearness allowance for government employees right now.

The finance minister said the government issued the National Pay Scale Order in 2015, which is still in force.

In the past, government employees were given the benefit of salary increment every year as per the pay scale order.

But, due to the provision of increase in percentage of the basic pay in the National Pay Scale 2015, the annual salary of the government employee increase at a fixed rate up to a certain limit, which has been playing a positive role in improving the standard of living of the government employees at all levels, the minister said.

"Amid the post-Covid global recession, inflation has increased around the globe with a hike in commodity prices, which has also affected Bangladesh. The government has taken various steps to control inflation and normalize the market situation."

The finance minister said that in the current situation, the government has launched a programme to provide daily essentials through family cards at a lower price.

The government is trying to take practical steps to increase the financial capacity of people.

"In this situation, there is no plan to announce a new pay scale or dearness allowance for the government employees at this moment," Kamal said.