Destiny-2000 under scrutiny

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FE Report
The commerce and home ministries are simultaneously going to take stringent actions against alleged 'fraud and illegal activities' of Destiny-2000 Ltd, a multi-level marketing (MLM) company working in the country for over a decade, official sources have said.
The order for official action by the government follows a recent directive from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in this regard. The MoF on December 28 asked the two ministries concerned to go for drastic legal and administrative measures against the said MLM company.
The directive has asked the Ministry of Home to investigate into the illegal activities of Destiny and take action as per the findings of the probe. It asked Ministry of Commerce (MoC) to form a committee to identify the 'unlawful and fraudulent activities' of the company in question.
"We are committed to taking actions against any illegal activities of MLM companies. An Act, named Direct Sales Act-2012, is likely to be approved by the cabinet meeting to be held next Monday to monitor the activities of such companies," MD Ghulam Hossain, Secretary, MoC, told the FE on Friday.
He said once the Act was enacted, the MLM operating in the country would be accountable.
The MoF in its directive to the two ministries concerned said legal action must be taken against the company as its business is 'deceitful and causing harm to innocent people'.
A good number of lawmakers in the recent times blasted the unlawful activities of Destiny.
Home Minister Sahara Khatun told parliament on October 24, 2011 in response to a query put forward by lawmaker Enamul Haque, "The way Destiny is operating could lead to a mess any day."
Enamul Haque, MP, in his parliament notice said, "Destiny is operating without any proper documents and a victim has already filed a case against the company."
"The company has already collected Tk 200 million from 10,000 people in my constituency," he said in parliament.
According to the website of Destiny-2000 Ltd, it is one of the largest MLM companies in the world. About 3.6 million distributors have joined the company since its inception in December 2000. Having its corporate office in Dhaka, Bangladesh, it has branches all over the country, it said.
With the goal to create self-employment opportunities for millions of educated-unemployed youths of Bangladesh, the company started its journey on a very rough road. Since the marketing concept was new in Bangladesh, the company started to face many difficulties from the beginning. The concept was misunderstood by many people, even by some of the government agencies. With 1800 employees at present, the company has 26 sister concerns, said the website further.
A high official at the MoF said they had earlier requested Bangladesh Bank (BB) to take legal action against Destiny. However, BB regretted citing that MLM business does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Bank Company Act, the finance official said.
Asked, the managing director of Destiny -2000 Ltd said they had no illegal and fraudulent business.
"I have no reservation for any government agency to look into the activities of our company," Rafiqul Amin, managing director, Destiny-2000 Ltd told the FE on Friday.