JS passes bill on use of state bodies' idle money

The Jatiya Sangsad (JS) passed on Wednesday a bill allowing the autonomous organisations and agencies to deposit their surplus fund with the public exchequer.

Finance Minister AHM Mostafa Kamal steered the bill titled 'Deposition of the Surplus Money of Self-Governed Agencies including Autonomous, Semi-Autonomous, Statutory Government Authorities and Public Non-Financial Corporations into the Government Exchequer Bill, 2020,' in a bid to use the surplus money for funding public projects.

As of September last year, 61 autonomous bodies and agencies had a surplus fund to the tune of over Tk 2.12 trillion (2.12 lakh crore).

While piloting the bill, the finance minister said the passage of the bill was necessary to make best use of this idle fund.

Since the government is the owner of these autonomous bodies and organisations, it is the government's responsibility to use the unused money for development of the country.

He said transfer of the fund would not hamper operations of the autonomous bodies, rather it would aid socio-economic development of the country.

Lawmakers including Rumin Farhana and Harunur Rashid of BNP and Kazi Feroze Rashid, Shamim Haider Patwari and Fakhrul Islam of the Jatiya Party opposed the bill.

Later, the bill was passed on voice votes.

The draft of the bill was approved by the cabinet in September last and it was placed in the JS by the finance minister on January 14.

According to the government statistics, the top surplus fund holding autonomous bodies are the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation with Tk 215.80 billion, Petrobangla with Tk 182.04 billion, Power Development Board with Tk 134.54 billion, the Chattogram Seaport with Tk 99.13 billion and the Rajuk with Tk 40.30 billion.

According to the bill, the autonomous bodies can keep the required money for their operational expenses, development project expenditures and 25 per cent of the annual emergency expenses.

The rest of the money has to be deposited with the public exchequer.

The bill also includes a list of the 61 organisations.