Banks have enough money but none for looting: PM [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Banks have enough money but none for looting: PM

Local June 18, 2019

Ruling out the claims of liquidity crisis in the banking sector, prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday said that there was enough money in the banks but no money for looting.
While giving the closing speech before the passage of the 2018-19 supplementary budget in the Jatiya Sangsad, Sheikh Hasina also said that the government knew who had looted banks in the past.
Leader of the house Sheikh Hasina was speaking on behalf of ailing finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal.
‘Many people say that there is no money in the banks. Why should there be no money there? Of course there is money in the banks, but that money is not for looting,’ she said.
She made the comments after the Opposition on Sunday came down heavily on the government for its failure to check money laundering, soaring bad loans and black money.
They also alleged that the banking sector was terribly suffering.
Sheikh Hasina said that many people had looted a lot of money from banks and some of them were in the prison on charges of corruption.
She said that they would dwell on the money in the banks at length at a proper time.
On another aspect, she also said that the country was advancing socio-economically as there was good governance in the country.
Hasina censured those who criticised the budget as ‘ambitious’ as well as having an ‘impossible revenue collection target’ and those who said that the ‘government lacked the capacity to implement the budget’.
Terming untrue the allegation by many that the government did not have the capacity to implement the budget, she questioned: ‘If we don’t have the capacity, how could the total budget reach from Tk 61,000 crore in 2008 to over Tk five lakh crore this year?’
She said that her government had reduced the poverty rate to 21 per cent from 41 per cent. ‘If we cannot implement the budgets, how did the poverty rate come down?’ she further asked.
Hasina said that Bangladesh had made remarkable progress in terms of managing the economy. ‘The country’s GDP is growing fast like many countries.’
‘Many call Bangladesh a development mystery,’ she further said, urging the critics to refrain from unnecessary criticism.
She commented that they had set some ambitious targets ‘as it is necessary for the country’s development’.
Sheikh Hasina went on to say that the government analysed annual development programmes in the middle of a financial year to modify or correct their plan.
‘Besides, we also analyse [to identify] which development programmes need more money and which ones need less,’ she added.
‘We have to do this as in reality development efforts cannot take place in the same pace,’ she said.
In response to some cut motions on the 2018-19 supplementary budget in parliament on behalf of housing and public works minister SM Rezaul Karim, the prime minister made some remarks.
She said that the person involved in the alleged corruption in buying ‘pillows and other household items’ for the Ruppur Nuclear Power Plant residential area had been involved in the Chhatra Dal, student wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
‘We have obtained some information about him, he was involved in the Chhatra Dal at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology,’ she said.
Sheikh Hasina said that the responsible official was the vice-president of the BUET [central students union].
She said that when the matter came to the notice of the government the responsible person was removed.
‘We are taking actions whenever we get the information, we are taking punitive measures irrespective of one’s party affiliation,’ she added.
She said that the BNP was formed through illegal means and there were still some people in that party who were corrupt.
Responding to a question from a reserved-women-seat MP regarding the allotment of a plot for each lawmaker in every parliament, the prime minister said that being a lawmaker for seven times one should not take any plot from the government.
‘My party gave me a bulletproof car and for that reason I could survive the August 21 grenade attack. This is not right to take plot every time,’ she said.
Sheikh Hasina said that the government did not come to power to indulge in corruption, adding that there were several attempts made to paint her as corrupt.
‘But it is hard to sack any government official after he enters into the job; the Anti-Corruption Commission is [, however,] now working independently,’ she said.