Substantial recovery of the transferred resources is possible
Saturday, 6 October 2007
Enayet Rasul
The Chief Adviser (CG), Fakhruddin Ahmed, gladdened the hearts of all Bangladeshis possessing the minimum morality and good of the country in their hearts, when in his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), he urged the international community to assist Bangladesh in every way to bring back its resources which were criminally acquired and then clandestinely transferred abroad. No one can estimate with absolute accuracy the total amount of such transferred resources. But experts have predicted at roundtable discussions that the total amount of transferred resources since the independence of the country would be an enormous one ; they have speculated that the resources transferred only in recent years would be enough to finance at least two consecutive national budgets. Thus, there is no need to elaborate on how the recovery of these monies substantially and utilizing them for developmental activities and spending on people's welfare, will mean great gains for this country and its people.
But the hope created by CG's UNGA speech may have been offset considerably from what the Finance Adviser said soon afterwards . After returning from a trip to the Philippines, the Adviser told newsmen that it would be unrealistic to pin any great hope on bringing back the looted money to Bangladesh. This appeared to be rather contrary to what the CG said at the UNGA. The Adviser of course cannot be blamed for pointing to real difficulties that stand in the way of recovering the plundered resources : first establishing that monies of Bangladeshi origin flowed out of Bangladesh and then tracing of such monies to make claims if these have been invested in foreign companies and businesses. Doing of these things efficiently and coping successfully with the legal requirements and tangles in the host countries, are no small hurdles either. But the tasks are not impossible. If the government makes determined efforts without wasting time and remains tenaciously engaged in the course, then very significant positive results can be expected. This optimism is borne out by the success rate of other countries in bringing back their similar resources and the much improved international climate favouring this trend.
The late military strongman of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha, was accused for transferring $ 3 billions of public money to secret accounts abroad. After his fall, the successor governments maintained their hunt for the stolen money and their painstaking efforts have paid off. Nigeria, so far has been able to recover a substantial part of Abacha's criminally acquired resources. Nigeria recovered a total of $505.5 million from Swiss authorities being money stolen and stashed away by Abacha, according to data released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Bank, under a new initiative called the Stolen Asset Recovery (STAR) programme. While Nigeria was able to readily recover from domestic institutions $800 million of the $3 billion that the late Abacha is estimated to have stolen during his rule, it took five years of legal effort before $505.5 million was released by Swiss authorities for return. In all, a little over $1.3 billion has been recovered so far from the late head of state's transferred and ill gotten resources and this is not a small success.
In May 1999, Time magazine estimated that the external family fortunes of the former strongman of Indonesia, General Suharto, was US$ 15 billion in cash, shares, corporate assets, real estate, jewelry and fine art. Of this, US$ 9 billion was reported to have been deposited in an Austrian bank during Suharto's 32 years of corrupt dictatorship. Successive Indonesian governments have been sustaining in their struggle to get back the looted money and so far several billions of Dollars have returned to Indonesia.
In 2001, after her term had ended as President of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos was arrested on charges of corruption and extortion committed during her husband's presidency. The charges centered on approximately $684 million that mysteriously "disappeared" from the Filipino treasury during the Marcos presidency. The investigators believed the wealth was stolen by the Marcos family and stashed in their Swiss bank account. In 2003, the money was awarded to the Philippine Government by the Swiss authorities after successful legal battles. A sum of over $ 1 billion of the Marcos family's transferred resources have been recovered and the fight is on to recover the rest.
Thus, there is no reason for the Bangladesh authorities to feel hopeless in continuing a similar struggle. Success will come their way if they remain resolutely on course and do what must be done. The main requirement seems to be the creation of capacities in the different investigation agencies. With such capacity building over, our investigators should be able to make effective claims in foreign lands that resources originating in Bangladesh were illegally transferred abroad. Once this is done, there is now international convention to assist Bangladesh in the return of such monies.
The STAR initiative started by the World Bank, in partnership with UNODC will help developing countries recover assets stolen by corrupt leaders. It is designed to build institutional capacity in developing countries, strengthen the integrity of financial markets, assist in the asset recovery process, and monitor the use of recovered assets. "This initiative will foster much needed cooperation between developed and developing countries, between the public and private sectors, to ensure that looted assets are returned to their rightful owners," said the Secretary General of the United Nations recently.
The legal framework underpinning the STAR initiative is UNCAC. 140 countries had signed the convention with 92 ratifying it as of November 2006. Half G8 countries excluding Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan have ratified UNCAC while 13 of the 54 jurisdictions classified by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs) have also ratified it.
Previous efforts to recover stolen assets were largely on bilateral basis. In some countries, there was no framework for repatriation making it possible to only freeze and not return such funds. But the STAR initiative has profoundly changed the scenario and Bangladesh and other countries stand a good chance of benefiting a great deal by relying on it and using its facility intelligently.
The Chief Adviser (CG), Fakhruddin Ahmed, gladdened the hearts of all Bangladeshis possessing the minimum morality and good of the country in their hearts, when in his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), he urged the international community to assist Bangladesh in every way to bring back its resources which were criminally acquired and then clandestinely transferred abroad. No one can estimate with absolute accuracy the total amount of such transferred resources. But experts have predicted at roundtable discussions that the total amount of transferred resources since the independence of the country would be an enormous one ; they have speculated that the resources transferred only in recent years would be enough to finance at least two consecutive national budgets. Thus, there is no need to elaborate on how the recovery of these monies substantially and utilizing them for developmental activities and spending on people's welfare, will mean great gains for this country and its people.
But the hope created by CG's UNGA speech may have been offset considerably from what the Finance Adviser said soon afterwards . After returning from a trip to the Philippines, the Adviser told newsmen that it would be unrealistic to pin any great hope on bringing back the looted money to Bangladesh. This appeared to be rather contrary to what the CG said at the UNGA. The Adviser of course cannot be blamed for pointing to real difficulties that stand in the way of recovering the plundered resources : first establishing that monies of Bangladeshi origin flowed out of Bangladesh and then tracing of such monies to make claims if these have been invested in foreign companies and businesses. Doing of these things efficiently and coping successfully with the legal requirements and tangles in the host countries, are no small hurdles either. But the tasks are not impossible. If the government makes determined efforts without wasting time and remains tenaciously engaged in the course, then very significant positive results can be expected. This optimism is borne out by the success rate of other countries in bringing back their similar resources and the much improved international climate favouring this trend.
The late military strongman of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha, was accused for transferring $ 3 billions of public money to secret accounts abroad. After his fall, the successor governments maintained their hunt for the stolen money and their painstaking efforts have paid off. Nigeria, so far has been able to recover a substantial part of Abacha's criminally acquired resources. Nigeria recovered a total of $505.5 million from Swiss authorities being money stolen and stashed away by Abacha, according to data released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Bank, under a new initiative called the Stolen Asset Recovery (STAR) programme. While Nigeria was able to readily recover from domestic institutions $800 million of the $3 billion that the late Abacha is estimated to have stolen during his rule, it took five years of legal effort before $505.5 million was released by Swiss authorities for return. In all, a little over $1.3 billion has been recovered so far from the late head of state's transferred and ill gotten resources and this is not a small success.
In May 1999, Time magazine estimated that the external family fortunes of the former strongman of Indonesia, General Suharto, was US$ 15 billion in cash, shares, corporate assets, real estate, jewelry and fine art. Of this, US$ 9 billion was reported to have been deposited in an Austrian bank during Suharto's 32 years of corrupt dictatorship. Successive Indonesian governments have been sustaining in their struggle to get back the looted money and so far several billions of Dollars have returned to Indonesia.
In 2001, after her term had ended as President of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos was arrested on charges of corruption and extortion committed during her husband's presidency. The charges centered on approximately $684 million that mysteriously "disappeared" from the Filipino treasury during the Marcos presidency. The investigators believed the wealth was stolen by the Marcos family and stashed in their Swiss bank account. In 2003, the money was awarded to the Philippine Government by the Swiss authorities after successful legal battles. A sum of over $ 1 billion of the Marcos family's transferred resources have been recovered and the fight is on to recover the rest.
Thus, there is no reason for the Bangladesh authorities to feel hopeless in continuing a similar struggle. Success will come their way if they remain resolutely on course and do what must be done. The main requirement seems to be the creation of capacities in the different investigation agencies. With such capacity building over, our investigators should be able to make effective claims in foreign lands that resources originating in Bangladesh were illegally transferred abroad. Once this is done, there is now international convention to assist Bangladesh in the return of such monies.
The STAR initiative started by the World Bank, in partnership with UNODC will help developing countries recover assets stolen by corrupt leaders. It is designed to build institutional capacity in developing countries, strengthen the integrity of financial markets, assist in the asset recovery process, and monitor the use of recovered assets. "This initiative will foster much needed cooperation between developed and developing countries, between the public and private sectors, to ensure that looted assets are returned to their rightful owners," said the Secretary General of the United Nations recently.
The legal framework underpinning the STAR initiative is UNCAC. 140 countries had signed the convention with 92 ratifying it as of November 2006. Half G8 countries excluding Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan have ratified UNCAC while 13 of the 54 jurisdictions classified by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs) have also ratified it.
Previous efforts to recover stolen assets were largely on bilateral basis. In some countries, there was no framework for repatriation making it possible to only freeze and not return such funds. But the STAR initiative has profoundly changed the scenario and Bangladesh and other countries stand a good chance of benefiting a great deal by relying on it and using its facility intelligently.