Muhith under fire over loan scams Appropriation bill 2015 passed

Finance minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday faced the wrath of the opposition and independent parliament members for failing to bring the masterminds of the loans scams to book. He was also criticised for growing capital flight from the country to Malaysia, Canada, the UAE and Geneva, just before passing of the appropriation bill 2015 in the parliament. Eight cut motions were raised by the members to slash grants worth Tk 923.93 crore demanded by Muhith for the banks and financial institutions division, responsible for monitoring the state-owned commercial and specialised banks, which are yet to recover from the series of loans scams. The cut motions were rejected by voice vote. However, the issue of the public sector banks and capital flight generated a heated debate in the otherwise dull discussions on the budget since June 4. Hazi Mohammad Selim, an independent member elected from Dhaka-7 constituency, started the debate saying that loan worth crores of taka were looted from the public sector banks. But there was no trail, he said, adding that the top 20 defaulters owned 30 per cent of the default loans. Nurul Islam Milon, a Jatiya Party parliament member elected from Comilla-8, said there was no actual statistics on the fund embezzled from Sonali Bank and BASIC Bank. He said the BIFD failed to check the loan scams. Another independent parliament member from Pirojpur-3 constituency Rustam Ali Farazi said people were panicked on finding that Tk 55,000 crore was bad loan in the banking sector. He demanded a list of the people who siphoned money off to Malaysia, Canada, the UAE and Geneva. Fakhrul Imam, a Jatiya Party MP from Mymensingh-8, demanded punishment of the masterminds behind the loans scams. He lamented that Muhith had ‘lesser’ clout than the masterminds. Muhiuth reacted sharply saying he was the only finance minister who was able to send some of the officials suspected of being involved in the loan scams to jail. No finance minister in the past dared to do so, he said, while taking part in the discussion. He said they reconstituted the BASIC bank board of directors. Also, measures were taken so that corrupt people could not leave the country. Muhith, however, did not say anything about the capital flight. The appropriation bill 2015 was passed allowing the government to spend Tk 4,15,308 crore in development and non development budgets in the new fiscal starting Wednesday. The finance ministry received the highest allocation of Tk 60,941 crore, followed by the local government division at Tk 18,871 crore. The defence ministry received the third highest at Tk 18,377 crore. Three independent members and seven from Jatiya Party brought more than 500 cut motions against allocations on banks and financial institutions division, ministries of public administration, education, health, industries and liberation affairs. The cut motions were rejected by voice vote. According to the appropriation bill placed by finance minister AMA Muhith, the ministry of education ministry received Tk 17,113 crore, power division Tk 16,503 crore, primary education ministry 14,504 crore, health and family welfare ministry Tk 12,725 crore, the agricultural ministry Tk 12,703 crore and ministry of food Tk 11,213 crore, Other major recipients were bridges division Tk 8,952 crore, road division Tk 7,911 crore, railway ministry Tk 7,734 crore and ministry of disaster management Tk 7,440 crore. With the passage of the appropriation bill, the Tk 295,100 crore budget for fiscal year 2015-16 placed in parliament on June 4, also passed. Around 219 lawmakers took part in the discussion on budgetary measures since June 4. The government targeted seven per cent GDP growth and aimed to keep inflation at 6.2 per cent. News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net