Muhith, Tofail trash CPD's observation

Two senior ministers Sunday trashed an observation that 2017 was a 'year of banking scam'.

"They all are rubbish," Finance Minister AMA Muhith told newsmen at his office at Bangladesh Secretariat in the capital.

He was replying to a question about the observation that the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) made in its report released on Saturday.

On this issue, the private think-tank pointed out lending irregularities, embezzlement, buildups of non-performing loans, recapitalisation and ownership shakeups to justify the observation.

"I have a comment on it. CPD made it, sort of, to bring down Bangladesh," Muhith said, replying to another query.

Asked about another observation on the finance ministry's deficiency in monitoring the banking sector, he would not comment on it. "I have no comment (about it)," he said.

The minister came down heavily on CPD not for accepting the government's successes. "The CPD never recognised achievements Bangladesh made."

He said that CPD did not utter any word when the Hall-Mark group's scam in Sonali Bank was detected.

In a separate programme, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed also lamented the statement of CPD, saying that the private think tank gave the handle to opposition party through its statements.

"This is the year of national elections. The CPD gave a weapon to the opposition through such statement about overall economy and banking. It has mentioned all negative sides about our economy. CPD's statements are not based on facts," he said, in response to questions on this issue at his secretariat office.

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