Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday expressed frustration over the lack of an appropriate mechanism to identify how the money is being siphoned off of the country as he invited possible solutions from the parliamentary standing committee members.
His helplessness arise out of the absence of proper information about the money laundering despite the country having two or three intelligence agencies working with the issue.
“It is quite tough to identify the persons who are involved in money laundering,” he told a pre-budget meeting with the parliamentary watchdog bodies at NEC conference room in Dhaka.
The lawmakers raised concern about money laundering and requested the finance minister to take measure for curbing the illegal flight of money abroad.
“It’s a serious criminal offence,” the minister told the meeting, urging all to help government with possible solution.
He apprised the meeting of the next budget estimate that would be around Tk250,000 crore and said the figure would actually be higher or lower. The ADP size would be Tk78,000 crore and the revenue budget would witness a substantial rise.
He pointed out that the public expenditure of Bangladesh is the lowest in the region, even lower than Nepal. The target for raising the public expenditure ratio to GDP in the next five year is 20-25% from the present 17-18%.
Muhith said human resource development would enjoy the highest emphasis in the new budget, which the power and energy sector used to enjoy as this sector is not now in a critical situation, he said.
He said the power generation will reach to 19,000 MW by 2017 to 2018 as they have placed orders for power plants.
Responding to the lawmakers’ suggestions to limit the countrywide possession of lands by the private sector and corporate houses, the minister said there could be steps to enforce it rationally.
Teachers’ MPO to see changes in FY16 budget
The finance minister said the government is working to bring changes in monthly pay order (MPO) system that has destroyed the standard of education system.
The government will set new criteria, including teachers’ qualifications, number of students and availability for the areas concerned in the fiscal year 2016 for giving allocation to the schools, he said, referring to a school that has only 10 students and five teachers.
“I’m personally very unhappy with the MPO system,” he said, adding that the country has 28,000 schools under MPO but most of them are fraud.
The MPO system was introduced in 1989 and its outcome was good earlier.
He requested the parliamentary standing committees to put forward their recommendations to this end to the education ministry.
He said allocation in the education sector will never fall, rather increase.
There are 28,000 non-government secondary schools, madrasas and colleges under MPO-list and the government spends around Tk5,000 crore annually. Around 98% educational institutions of Bangladesh are non-government.
Chairmen of parliamentary standing committees on Law and Parliamentary Affairs Suranjit Sengupta, Water Resources Ministry Ramesh Chandra Sen, Primary and Mass Education Afsarul Ameen, Labour and Employment Affairs Ministry Monnujan Sufian and Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman took part in the discussion, among others.
