JS body annoyed with BB

Staff Reporter :
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance Ministry on Thursday expressed annoyance over Bangladesh Bank for its failure to identify persons responsible for laundering money from the country.
The body also showed is dissatisfaction about the poor performance of the financial intelligence unit of the BB, officials said. President of the committee Abdur Razzak told journalists after the meeting, “So far as we know, Tk 500 crore is siphoned off every year through different channels. The trend is going on for last 10 years.”
“Tk 996 crore was laundered in 2013. We don’t understand what the duty of financial intelligence unit of BB is?’ he said raising a question. According to the ministry’s version, which was given in the minutes of meeting, 80 percent of the laundered money was siphoned off either under-invoicing or over-invoicing. In this regard, the ministry refereed to the recent report of Global Financial Integrity (GFI).
Meanwhile, the JS body’s meeting took a decision that in case of the AB bank’s failure to return back its laundered money by September 30, the central bank will take action against it. Sources said, four foreign companies had laundered USD 4, 25, 40,000 (Tk 340 crore) through AB bank’s offshore unit. The money was laundered to Singapore and The United Arab Emirates.
AB bank authorities have admitted that they done wrong and already recovered 40 percent of the money. The remaining part of the money would be recovered soon, officials said. State Minister of Finance MA Mannan, Abdul Wadud, Tipu Munshi and Mustafizur Rahman were present in the meeting.