The money laundering issue will be highlighted in the white paper on Bangladesh’s state of economy, analyze the causes and extent of corruption, and make all of this public. The committee, assigned for this task, is not assigned to identify or catch those guilty of corruption, said Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, head of the committee of the white paper on the state of the economy, and distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue.
He made the comments to the reporters after the committee’s first meeting on Thursday. Their second meeting is slated to be held on Tuesday next week.
“It is not a committee to catch corruption, this committee will find out where corruption took place. It is not our responsibility to identify who is involved in corruption. That task falls under the jurisdiction of the government and its relevant agencies. We will try to reveal the extent of corruption and why it happened, so that such incidents are not repeated.”
Money laundering issue
Regarding laundered money, Bhattacharya said: “There has been some discussion in our committee about money laundering. We will talk about money laundering in the report. We will even try to highlight that in our interim report.”
“It will be very tough to repatriate the laundered money. That is why it is essential to identify how it happened, so that it does not happen again. We have to ensure money launderers are punished, regardless of whether we get the money back or not.”
To explain the procedure of repatriating laundered money, Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya explained: “Bringing back the laundered money is a very complicated process as financial tracing or paper tracking is not so simple. If it is found, first of all, a case must be filed under the laws of the country. Then the decree must be taken from the court. Then, another decree has to be taken from the country where it was smuggled. All this must be done based on evidence.”
“Before that, it needs to be proven that these certain assets were purchased with that laundered money. Then those will be frozen. After that, if you get a decree on them, only then it can be sold and we will be able to bring the money back to the country.”
“Second, there should be an agreement with the concerned country to bring that laundered money back. We do not have these agreements in place with many countries.”
“Third, even if there are contracts, we do not have the skilled lawyers or financial experts to use them. It is also not easy to find skilled people.”
“As far as I know our chief adviser has talked about bringing back this smuggled money when he met various foreign dignitaries, like when he met the British high commissioner. That means the government is negotiating on a bilateral basis. They are not waiting for us.”
Purpose of the white paper
Through this white paper exercise, the current government will better understand what they have inherited to govern the country.
After the press briefing, Dr Zahid Hossain, member of the committee and former lead economist at the World Bank Dhaka office, told Dhaka Tribune: “This was the first meeting. Hopefully, we will get a better understanding in the next meetings. But speaking broadly, this committee's work will be to present a rough picture or documentation on the state of the economy that this government has inherited.”
Debapriya further said: “Our committee will cooperate in making new policies. This committee will work on three main issues: examine the government data, analyze research papers of national and international organizations, and discuss with various stakeholders.”
Debapriya also underscored that the committee is not responsible for implementing any reform measures.
“We are not here to carry out reform activities.
The committee will not conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the banking sector and financial institutions. The government is planning to form a Banking Commission, which will be established in the future to address those issues, Bhattacharya added.