It’s impossible for govt to restore remittance senders’ confidence

When Bangladesh’s economy is going through a serious crisis and more money is needed to pay the import bill, the remittance is not coming to Bangladesh according to the increased number of expatriate workers leaving the country.

According to reports, in the last one year and nine months, more than 100,000 workers on an average have gone to different countries every month, but compared to so many workers, remittance is not increasing much.

In the last year, the number of workers left for foreign lands was double than the number of workers in the previous year, yet remittance decreased by 3.5 per cent.

Now the question arises why is this fall? Obviously, the money is not coming through the proper banking channel, though, according to expatriate sector experts, money is coming to Bangladesh at a higher rate than before.

As a result, the size of dollar reserves in the central bank is taking a beating. For this, the government is squarely to blame.

It is not only the expatriate workers; even the general depositors inside the country are opting nowadays to keep money to themselves instead of commercial banks.

Massive irregularities, large loan scams one after another as well as frequent news of huge money laundering have shattered the depositors’ faith in banks.

For the same reasons, expatriate workers are sending remittance through informal channels of hundis and this is severely impacting the dollar reserves.

According to the data of Bangladesh Bank, in the first seven months of this year, the expatriate income has reached $1,309 million.

This is slightly more than the first seven months of last year.

Expatriate income at the same time last year was $1,289 million, and in the last five months of last year $8.4 billion dollars entered Bangladesh.

Now with the present bad image, the government cannot hope to improve the remittance situation.

The people as a whole have lost their trust in the government. Many are suggesting that if the government wants expatriate workers to send money through the bank, they will have to give the facility equal to the unofficial exchange rate through hundis.

Even if the government does that this will not win their trust.

If money laundering cannot be stopped, discipline, and people’s confidence in the bank cannot be restored, things may deteriorate even more.