Shakhawat Hossain
There is no progress in 31 of 138 actions adopted in the national strategy for preventing money laundering and combating terror financing, according to a report of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit.
The actions that stagnated include recovery of smuggled-out money against the backdrop of growing capital flight from the country, investigation into money laundering-related cases and easing the lengthy legal process of the cases.
Besides, removing obstacles to getting information by the BFIU from other state organs and amendment of the companies act and company registration act were other key action plans that seem to have gone out of sight of the three-year national strategy paper which expired with the just-concluded calendar year.
While talking to New Age on Thursday, BFIU chief Abu Hena Monha Razee Hassan said he did not want to blame any individual agency for making zero progress on the key action plans adopted in 2015.
BFIU had already emphasised further coordinated efforts from the agencies concerned, especially the attorney general’s office, to overcome the sluggish progress on the key action plans during a meeting of the national committee on money laundering and combating terror financing, led by finance minister AMA Muhith, on December 26.
Razee Hassan said the country must revamp the national taskforce immediately to implement the action plans as per the country’s commitment to the Asia Pacific Group, an inter-governmental organisation on preventing money laundering and also an affiliated body of the Paris-based international organisation Financial Action Task Force.
Local business people suffered from problems like payment of additional fees for doing business with the international community and delay in getting money from abroad during 2012-2014 when the country was included in the grey list of the FATF and the APG.
In February 2014, the country came out of the negative list on certain conditions including formulation of the national strategies paper and its time-bound implementation of the action plans.
Razee Hassan, also a deputy governor of the Bangladesh Bank, said the country must improve the implementation rate of stagnated action plans by March for safeguarding the country’s current position it held in the multilateral bodies.
According to BFIU officials, the government agencies were successful in implementing 71 action plans fully and 36 partially in the past three years.
Former BB governor Salehuddin Ahmed noted that there was no effective measure by the Anti-Corruption Commission and the BB to hunt down the people responsible for sending money abroad illegally.
Illicit fund outflows cost the country $8.97 billion in 2014, according to a report by the Global Financial Integrity. The county also lost $75 billion between 2005 and 2014 due to illegal outflow of fund through hundi and trade mis-invoicing, said the US-based GFI.
The local money laundering prevention agencies also failed to nab any persons who sent money illegally to Malaysia for availing the ‘second home facility’.
Reports from Kuala Lumpur in July showed that 3,546 Bangladeshis invested money to get approval of the facility since 2002 to hold third position after Chinese and Japanese.
Money held by Bangladeshis in Swiss banks increased to $694.15 million at the end of 2016, marking 19 per cent increase from the previous year.
Distinguished fellow of Centre for Policy Dialogue Mustafizur Rahman said the country-people wanted better performance from the state agencies to check money laundering. He noted that growing hundi operations had already made the growth of the inflow of remittances negative and put pressure on the current account balance.
- Courtesy - New Age, Jan 06, 2018
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