Detecting those laundering money difficult: Muhith

FE Team | Published: April 28, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

Terming siphoning off money a serious criminal offence, Finance Minister AMA Muhith admitted Sunday that it is very difficult to trace those involved in such acts with limited manpower in different government agencies, report agencies.
"Siphoning off money...the problem is that it's taking place, and there are news in the media, too. But, how you'll detect it … it's very hard," he said.
The Finance Minister was speaking at a pre-budget meeting with chairmen of different parliamentary standing committees at the NEC-II in city's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area.
Muhith said many have houses in Malaysia or posh apartments in Dubai, "But how do you detect that? We've some intelligence agencies as well as there is NBR, Bangladesh Bank, police but I don't know how do you catch those? This is a serious offence against the nation."
He also sought suggestions from the parliamentary standing committee chairmen in this regard.
Turning to education, the Finance Minister said the MPO system has destroyed the standard of education, especially the secondary one.
Muhith said the government is now discontinuing with the MPO and hinted that a new scheme may be introduced in the fiscal 2016 where schools would get government grants based on availability for the area, number of students and teachers qualifications.
"I'm personally very unhappy with the MPO system," Muhith said suggesting the parliamentary standing committee chairmen to put forward their recommendations to this end to the Education Ministry.
The Finance Minister said it would not be possible to put the new scheme in the new budget for FY 15.
Responding to the lawmakers' suggestions to limit the countrywide possession of lands by the private sector and corporate houses, the Finance Minister said there could be steps to enforce it nationally.
AMA Muhith also said Tk 2.5 trillion (2.50 lakh crore) national budget for fiscal year 2014-15 (FY15) will not be ambitious as all the budgets in the last five years were not ambitious but realistic.
The size of Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the next fiscal year would stand around at Tk 780 billion (78,000 crore) while the revenue budget would also witness a rise, Muhith said.
The finance minister said the domestic resource mobilization in the last five years increased by 3.0 per cent of the GDP and the target for the next five years is to increase by 5.0 per cent of GDP.
About public expenditure, he said Bangladesh's public expenditure is the lowest in the region even lower than Nepal. The government has a target to increase the public expenditure ratio to GDP in the next five years to 20-25 per cent from the present 17-18 per cent, he added.
Muhith said human resource development would get the highest emphasis in the upcoming budget.
Earlier, Chairmen of parliamentary standing committees proposed expansion of tax net, raising direct tax, resolving land scarcity hindering investment and liberalizing the credit policy in the upcoming national budget.
They also called for proper allocation for river dredging, encouraging PPP initiatives in development of tourism and ensuring more transparency in government activities in the budget for fiscal year 2014-15.
The Parliamentary standing committee chairmen put forward their suggestions in the pre-budget meeting with Finance Minister.
Suranjit Sengupta, chairman of the standing committee chairman on Law, Justice and Parliamentary affairs, alleged many corporate houses are holding thousands of acres of land across the country for years without making promised investment.