Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is satisfied with the overall reform progress including the country’s banking sector under the ongoing Extended Credit Facility(ECF) programme, despite the sector faced credit scams and corruption.
The reform in the board of directors of the Basic Bank is being delayed under the reform in the banking sector just because of its reported scam, he told reporters, after a meeting held with the visiting deputy managing director of IMF Naoyuki Shinohara at Economic Relation Division (ERD) at Sher-e- Bangla Nagar in the capital yesterday.
Deputy Managing director of IMF Naoyuki Shinohara arrived in Dhaka yesterday for a two-day visit to Bangladesh. He had earlier canceled his scheduled visit to Bangladesh due to political unrest over 10th general polls in Bangladesh.
The IMF executive is scheduled to pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today.
“The country’s revenue sector reform performance is also good despite huge revenue shortfall due to the indiscriminate killings during the political turmoil centering January 5 national polls,’’ said the minister.
Regarding the visit of the IMF executive, the minister said it is for the first time a high IMF official is visiting Bangladesh to discuss about the reform progress in the country’s financial sector and macro-economy under the existing ECF.
So far the conditions of the IMF credit programmes are not so strong as the global lender is not pressing the government to increase prices of fuel oil, electricity and natural gas under its credit programme, said Muhith.
Regarding World Bank’s observation, which stated it would send a wrong signal to the country’s banking sector if the chairman of Basic Bank Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachchu was not removed, the finance minister has said: “We are a bit delayed in the process, but we will definitely reform the board of director of Basic Bank shortly.”
He, however, said only two IMF credit programmes had successfully been completed in Bangladesh during the last decade and hoped that the ongoing ECF programme would be completed smoothly. “We are interested about the IMF credit because of minimum interest rate, which is like a budget support for us.”
In 2007-08, the IMF had provided Bangladesh with a fund support under its Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PRGF) programme to help the export sector face the challenges of global recession. IMF had approved a three-year ECF loan of $975.9 in April 2012 now being disbursed in seven installments. The fifth installment of US$141m was released last month.
