–Taufiqur Rahman–

The White Paper on the Bangladeshi economy indicates that $16 billion has been siphoned off each year over 15 years by Hasina regime. This is a staggering amount considering the exchange rate between the US dollar and Taka. We have also seen reports from Panama Papers, Paradise Papers and Pandora Papers on international banking scandals where Bangladeshi names have frequently appeared in connection to overseas properties, offshore bank accounts and shell companies that hide ill-gotten gains. These databases are accessible through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and other sources. British newspaper Observer and Bonn-based Transparency International recently published reports of Bangladesh’s corrupt politicians’ ownership of properties in the UK, the value of which is six thousand crores taka. The country lost billions annually through illegal financial flows attributed to political and corporate corruption, corporate misreporting and tax evasion. According to Al Jazeera’s investigative desk, Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, a former land minister of the Hasina government, has over 300 hundred homes in the UK and USA, worth $500-$600million. Salman F Rahman, S Alam, and NASA group chairman Nazrul Islam Majumder are also known to have laundered hundreds of millions of dollars out of the country. Billions of takas have also been taken out by Hasina, her relatives, Members of Parliament, various elected leaders, and her ministers. 40% of annual development project money has been lost due to corruption. In the last 15 years, total ADP expenditure was 7,20,000 crores taka.

While the interim government has taken some actions to strengthen the banking system and initiated a process to recover the stolen money, more needs to be done urgently to fill the big financial gap in the banking sector.

First, the interim government should immediately sell the assets of all those who have laundered money from the country’s financial system and deposit the proceeds in the national banking system. This should be done immediately without any hesitation and delay. The government must strengthen the role of the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) by appointing more capable leaders to lead this process and empower them with legislative power to pursue the recovery process. We must go after the assets of the relatives of the corrupt people, i.e., politicians, businesspeople and government officials and their families who have been part of the multi-faceted fraud to launder money from the country.

Second, decisive actions should be taken to recover the non-performing loans (NPL). The July-September 2024 quarter saw an unprecedented increase of Tk 74,000 crore in defaulted loans. The Bangladesh Bank (BB) must empower all banks to take every legal measure to recover defaulted loans to alleviate their liquidity crisis. Banks must be allowed to go after the assets of those who do not intend to pay back the loans or have left the country to avoid criminal proceedings. Many political leaders took loans with the intention of not paying them back. These people must be forced to sell their assets to return some of the money to the banks. The BB must also create a national database of people having a record of money laundering, loan default, LC fraud, and other ways of stealing money from the country.

Third, Bangladesh is part of the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR), a partnership between the World Bank Group and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Policymakers must now utilise this mechanism to explore every avenue to locate and recover laundered money. We must use the full force of our diplomatic relations to create maximum pressure on these countries to cooperate with our efforts to recover the money. We know that the European Union, the UK and the USA have made serious commitments to help Bangladesh. We need a similar commitment from India, Canada, Australia, the UAE, Qatar, Russia, China and other countries to help Bangladesh’s efforts. Bangladesh must demonstrate its firm commitment to recover stolen money.

Fourth, Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) must work with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) to track laundered money transacted through the U.S. financial systems. Bangladesh can learn from various international corruption scandals and use the knowledge to target accused individuals living in the USA, Canada, the Middle East, the UK, the European Union, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries. The government must significantly expand ACC’s capacity to pursue this huge task. We expect ACC to work with the Foreign Ministry teams and Bangladesh Bank to guide our diplomats in their pursuit of recovering stolen money.

Fifth, the government must evaluate ongoing projects and new projects where corrupt deals have been made to inflate the price. The government has started this review process, but the biggest problem is that this has become a slow process. The World Bank and other international financial institutions are concerned about slow approval of projects and disbursements of funds.

Sixth, ACC and BB must work with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Decisive actions from the government are needed within a short time span. Recovered money can be made available through the banking system for the economy. We do not have the luxury of red tape. Political decisions to fast-track actions in every ministry and various departments are needed.

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The writer is an international development expert based in the USA