Govt agencies under pressure to service their outstanding debts

FE Team | Published: September 04, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

S M JahangirbrThe concerned government agencies and autonomous bodies, especially those heavily burdened with official debts, are under serious pressure from the authorities concerned to settle their dues, official sources said.brThe finance ministry has again asked all the agencies concerned to settle their outstanding debts with the government to help meet the growing state expenditures, the sources said.brThe DSL (debt service liability) wing of the finance ministry has recently issued letters to all 54 government agencies in a fresh move stating that the government wants to streamline their debt settlement process, the sources added.brThe authorities have taken necessary steps to ensure the realisation process of the pending debts that the agencies concerned owe to the government, said a senior official of the finance ministry.brUnder a new initiative, the DSL wing has recently published a DSL manual in which details of the debt liabilities of the individual agencies have been placed, the sources said further.brThe manual reveals that outstanding debts of state organisations and other autonomous bodies to the government have already exceeded Tk 665.53 billion with the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) topping the defaulters' list. brOf the amount, the agencies are liable to pay more than Tk 485.94 billion - nearly Tk 182.07 billion as principal amounts and Tk 303.87 billion as interest - to the government.brThe figures have also shown that the concerned agencies have so far paid only Tk 63.28 billion, which is only 8.68 per cent of the total arrears of debts, said an official source.brAmong the top ten defaulters, the Power Development Board owes over Tk 264.80 billion, followed by the Petrobangla with Tk 69.34 billion, the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) Tk 47.93 billion, Rural Electrification Board (REB) Tk 11.82 billion and the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge Authority (JMBA) Tk 1.17 billion, the official figures showed.br We have initiated the process of realising the huge amounts of debts from the agencies concerned after we found that non-payment of such dues had put the government in a difficult satiation to manage its current expenditures, said the official.brFollowing their poor performance in debt settlement, the authorities are planning to sit with the agencies concerned shortly in order to fix-up their debt repayment process, said an official.brWe are going to hold meetings with all the agencies concerned group wise, aiming to seek DSL payment assurances from them, the finance ministry official said.brThe official further said most of the government agencies continued to perform poorly in the payment of outstanding debts, despite repeated official efforts to streamline the payment system.brAnother source said such debt recovery drive came in line with the government's ongoing efforts to boost its resources, especially from the internal sources.br