[🇧🇩] Corruption Watch

[Saif]

Dev projects still marred by misspending, wastage: adviser

Adviser for power, energy and mineral resources Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan on Friday said that development projects in Bangladesh were still besmirched with wastage and misspending.

www.newagebd.net

Dev projects still marred by misspending, wastage: adviser
Staff Correspondent 06 December, 2024, 23:02

Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan | File photo

Adviser for power, energy and mineral resources Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan on Friday said that development projects in Bangladesh were still besmirched with wastage and misspending.

He made the remark at the inaugural event of the 6th National HR Convention 2024 organised by the Federation of Bangladesh Human Resource Organisations at Southeast University in the capital Dhaka on the day.

‘The government does not have the means to understand these things. Different donor agencies and consultants explain these issues to us,’ he said.

‘We have already seen the consequences of wastage once. If these misspending and wastages continue, there will be an even bigger rebellion next time. Some think that the interim government is a one-time episode, but it’s not,’ Fouzul Kabir Khan added.

‘When I go on field trips and talk to the people, I observe that the anger still remains inside them,’ the power adviser said.

‘Karnaphuli tunnel was built at the cost of Tk 10,000 crore, however, I have observed while visiting, vehicles do not use that tunnel much. There is no end to wastage in development projects wherever I go,’ the adviser noted.

Fouzul said, ‘A power plant was built in Rupsha, Khulna, costing Tk 8,000 crore, but there is no gas available for it. On my way back, I saw that Tk 41,000 crore was spent on the Padma rail bridge, though a few thousand crore was saved in the final stages.’

He continued, ‘I learned that the project was expected to generate Tk 1,400 crore in revenue every year, and I thought it was a good initiative. However, in six months, it only earned Tk 37 crore in revenue, according to officials. This is how these projects are justified.’

He pointed out that such actions were simply wasteful and said that the blame did not lie only with politicians, government officials were also involved.

Md Sabur Khan, chairman of Daffodil International University and Global Entrepreneurship Network- Bangladesh Chapter, among others, was present in the event.​

 

[Saif]

Businesses call to curb red tape, corruption to spur investment

Investment barriers at the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and the Office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) must be addressed immediately to bolster investor confidence and increase investment growth, according to experts and top business leaders.

www.thedailystar.net

Businesses call to curb red tape, corruption to spur investment

Investment barriers at the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and the Office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) must be addressed immediately to bolster investor confidence and increase investment growth, according to experts and top business leaders.

The laws concerned must be amended right away in order to end the culture of bribery and establish corruption-free service organisations, they suggested.

"Facilitation of trade and investment must be a priority. A trade and investment commission with active participation from the private sector is required," Ashraf Ahmed, president of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI), said while speaking with The Daily Star recently.

He added that many reforms could be implemented immediately, such as those that can be initiated through executive orders or require changes in the rules rather than the law.

However, some major reforms will require changes to existing laws. So, they will require approval from parliament.

According to Ahmed, numerous laws must be updated to reflect changing global circumstances and business needs. This includes the Companies Act 2014, Export Import Control Act 1950, Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947, Competition Act, Income Tax Act, Customs Act, and VAT Act.

Ahmed said amending and updating these laws is required to create a conducive environment for investment.

However, many reform opportunities which will not require changes in the law also exist, such as automation of filing procedures for the RJSC, Chief Controller of Import and Export or customs.

Mohammed Amirul Haque, managing director of Premier Cement Mills, stressed the need for a platform that will focus on trade and investment as well as address problems and bottlenecks faced by entrepreneurs.

He alleged that the inconsistent policy governing the adjustable advance income tax of investors was discouraging investment by increasing the business cost by around 10 percent.

Haque added that entrepreneurs would have to keep a 35 percent profit margin to sustain the businesses in line with the existing income tax law.

This type of bottleneck indirectly encourages the siphoning of money, he alleged.

Asif Ibrahim, former president of DCCI, said the business community hopes the burning issues in the private sector of Bangladesh will now get due priority from the interim government.

Ashik Chowdhury, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (Bida), said he met over 300 chief executive officers over the past 50 days to identify the challenges faced by businesses and was focusing on addressing the barriers.

"Basically, I am doing this to bring necessary changes and reforms to create a business-friendly environment," he said.

According to Chowdhury, everybody acknowledges that corruption occurs at the NBR, posing a major obstacle to doing business transparently and smoothly.

Zaved Akhter, president of the Foreign Investors' Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), said although no reform commission has been formed regarding investment, all the reforms that have been taken will ultimately support investment and business.

Bangladesh is the only country in the world where investors raise capital for investment from the money market, he said, while investors in other countries raise capital from the stock market. Reforms are needed in this area, he suggested.

However, he said initiatives taken to change the structure of the stock market would undoubtedly support the investment.

Investment reforms should come mainly from the Bida, where everything can be done under one umbrella, he said, adding: "If the initiatives taken by the BIDA can be implemented, the confidence of investors will increase."

He added: "I am extremely confident that these changes will help create an environment for doing business."

Mohammad Hatem, president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said a zero-tolerance policy must be formulated immediately and implemented to improve the state of law and order.

Additionally, he advocated for trade associations to be free of politics.

M Masrur Reaz, chairman and chief executive officer of the Policy Exchange of Bangladesh, said think tanks have already conducted a lot of research on how to build an investment-friendly environment and attract FDI.

"All the barriers have been detected. We just need the Bida or another high-powered government entity to address the issues by implementing the recommendations," he said.

In order to boost the confidence of foreign investors, he emphasised the importance of improving the ease of doing business.​

 

[Saif]

Capital flights, corruption make ensuring equality challenging

Planning and education adviser Wahiduddin Mahmud on Saturday said that building an equitable society in the current reality was challenging, given that huge capital flights, corruption and massive irregularities...

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Capital flights, corruption make ensuring equality challenging
Staff Correspondent 07 December, 2024, 23:01

Planning and education adviser Wahiduddin Mahmud. | File photo

Planning and education adviser Wahiduddin Mahmud on Saturday said that building an equitable society in the current reality was challenging, given that huge capital flights, corruption and massive irregularities had constrained investments in education, health, human resource development and other areas.

He made the comment at the inaugural session of the Annual BIDS Conference on Development (ABCD) 2024, organised by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies at the Hotel Lakeshore at Gulshan in the capital Dhaka.

Wahiduddin, also an economist, inaugurated the four-day development conference titled ‘Equality, Opportunity, Freedom, and Dignity for Equitable and Sustainable Development’.

BIDS director general Binayak Sen delivered the opening remarks during the inaugural session.

Discussing how Bangladesh could build an equitable society following the student-led mass uprising, Wahiduddin highlighted the severe resource constraints faced by the interim government.

He pointed out that significant amounts of money were siphoned off abroad, while domestic funds remained in banks but were inaccessible.

Regarding the projects initiated during the previous government’s tenure, he pointed out that several projects were prestige-driven, undertaken primarily for publicity rather than necessity.

The interim government is now re-evaluating their purposes and outcomes, he said.

‘We are still trapped in the lower middle-income bracket, far from achieving what the Philippines has, let alone Malaysia,’ the adviser observed.

He mentioned that Vietnam’s per capita income in the 1990s was similar to Bangladesh’s.

‘Now Vietnam’s per capita income is 40-50 times of Bangladesh. They secure $20 billion annually in foreign direct investment, while we attract just $2 billion,’ he said.

‘We lack substantial global economic integration and need significant advancements in education and technology,’ he added.

Regarding Bangladesh’s LDC graduation, he highlighted the country’s qualification twice for the graduation.

Seeking an extension to remain an LDC is seen as regressive, he said.

‘Once qualified, a nation must graduate. We need active global engagement to navigate this shift,’ he added.

Wahiduddin Mahmud also expressed hope that Bangladesh would see an elected government in 2025.

‘No country can become rich overnight. It requires collective efforts and a sustained strategy. Our interim government is here for a short term,’ Wahiduddin said.

The interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was formed on August 8 following the fall of the authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India amid a student-led mass uprising on August 5.

Indermit S Gill, the chief economist of the World Bank Group, said, ‘To escape being trapped in slower growth, middle-income countries need to balance the economic forces of creation, preservation and destruction.’

Middle-income countries which are home to six billion people, are in a race against time, he said.​

 

[Saif]

Mass uprising renews call to combat corruption

The country will observe International Anti-Corruption Day today with a fresh call to combat the widespread corruption upholding the spirit of the student-people uprising...

www.newagebd.net

Mass uprising renews call to combat corruption
Solamain Salman 09 December, 2024, 00:16

The country will observe International Anti-Corruption Day today with a fresh call to combat the widespread corruption upholding the spirit of the student-people uprising.

Experts said that corruption affected every aspect of the society in the past 15 years of the Awami League rule due to lack of governance and accountability, and indifference of the Anti-Corruption Commission.

The Awami League, in its election manifestos, had announced a zero-tolerance policy against corruption and then AL lawmakers, ministers, and deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina had also promised to fight corruption, but the announcements remained on paper only.

People have witnessed massive corruption, including money laundering, abuse of power, accumulation of illegal wealth and embezzlement of money from banking and financial institutions in the name of loans, in the past 15 years.

The Anti-Corruption Commission, however, failed to check the graft as its independence was also held hostage to the successive governments in the past, the experts said.

The governments, by dint of its authority to appoint the top brass of the commission, placed their favoured officers in the commission and maintained comfortable control over it, they said.

As a result, the commission’s ability to act independently in fighting corruption has remained severely tied down right from its establishment in 2004, they added.

Despite officially being an independent agency, the commission has rather been used as a weapon by the successive governments against their opponents, they observed.

For the same reason, the agency could rarely take into account the corruption allegations brought against the powerful ones, particularly politicians, bureaucrats and businesspeople belonging to or associated with the ruling parties, the experts said.

Even the commission, in most cases, has failed to initiate an inquiry or file cases against powerful quarters without a go-ahead signal from the government, they said.

According to the White Paper on the State of Bangladesh Economy, the country lost $16 billion annually between 2009 and 2023 because of the illicit fund flow amid systemic tax evasion, misuse of exemptions, and poorly managed public finances under the authoritarian AL regime.

The white paper, submitted to chief adviser Muhammad Yunus on December 1, underscored the significant fiscal opportunities lost to corruption and stated that halving tax exemptions could double education funding and triple health allocations.

TIB executive director Iftekharuzzaman told New Age on Sunday that the promises about zero tolerance against corruption remained only on paper.

‘The corruption is on the rise, and it was also institutionalised in Bangladesh in the past through the tripartite collusion of bureaucracy, politics and business,’ he said.

‘The tripartite collusion had created scope for abusing power, weakening the state structure as corruption, especially high-level corruption and money laundering, increased,’ he added.

The past government not only allowed corruption but also gave protection to the corruption, said Iftekharuzzaman.

‘Our young generation created scope of bringing change through mass uprising, so we have to utilise the scope with the spirit of the mass uprising to combat corruption.’

A positive change is, however, a must in bureaucracy and politics to make an effective functional Anti-Corruption Commission to check corruption, he said.

According to a TIB survey titled Corruption in Service Sectors: National Household Survey 2023, people paid an estimated Tk 1.46 lakh crore in bribes to get services during the 15 years of AL rule.

The survey of 15,515 households revealed that 70.9 per cent of respondents encountered corruption while seeking services in 2023.

Between May 2023 and April 2024, service seekers paid about Tk 10,902 crore in bribes, which is 1.4 per cent of the revised national budget for the 2023-24 financial year and 0.2 per cent of the GDP, it says.

The survey also found that the Department of Immigration and Passports, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, and law enforcement agencies were the most corruption-prone sectors, respectively.

It said that 50.8 per cent of the surveyed households reported paying bribes or being forced to pay extra for services.

Former ACC director general Moyeedul Islam said, ‘The ACC could not play a role as an independent body during AL tenure as the partisan governments held the agency hostage and controlled it.’

He said, ‘All the political governments used the ACC as a weapon for harassing opposition people in the past, but the trend should change to fight corruption.’

He stressed the need for holding the corrupt people accountable to effectively combat corruption.

The commission should work effectively this time, as now a neutral government is in power, but top posts of the commission are lying vacant for more than one month, he expressed frustration.

The latest Transparency International report published in January also indicated that corruption was increasing in Bangladesh as the country slid two steps to the 10th position from the bottom among the 180 countries covered by its Corruption Perception Index 2023.

Bangladesh, which was in the 12th position in the same index in 2022, ranked 149th in 2023, down from 147th position in the previous year, while its points dropped to 24 points out of 100 in 2023 from 25 points in 2022.

Bangladesh is the 4th most corrupt country among 31 Asia-Pacific countries and second in South Asia, ahead of only Afghanistan, it said.​

 

[Saif]

Anatomy of Rolls Royce import

The news that eight Rolls Royce cars have arrived in the country for the first time following formal commercial import procedures over the past six months may cause some unease as an immediate reaction. But the unsettling feeling may get somewhat quieted when it is known that a certain type of the

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Anatomy of Rolls Royce import
Neil Ray
Published :
Dec 09, 2024 00:45
Updated :
Dec 09, 2024 00:45

The news that eight Rolls Royce cars have arrived in the country for the first time following formal commercial import procedures over the past six months may cause some unease as an immediate reaction. But the unsettling feeling may get somewhat quieted when it is known that a certain type of the world's most luxurious car has been imported. Although these eight cars are still the most expensive cars ever imported over the past two decades, they are electric models the company has been producing of late.

The advantage of these cars is primarily their environmental non-pollution but what really prompted the importers and customers to procure those is the duty waiver on electricity-driven cars. Two of the cars were ordered by separate customers and the rest were imported by industrial groups for their own use. When the orders were placed with car traders and the manufacturer of the cars is not known. Most likely, a few of those were ordered before the August 5 political changeover.

Each of the luxury cars costs, according to a report carried in a contemporary, more than Tk46 million but import duty has been a modest 89.32 per cent. So the import duty stood at Tk41 million for each car and the total cost amounted to nearly Tk90 million. Had the cars not been electric ones, the import duty would be a whopping 826.60 per cent and the duty alone would be in the range of Tk 380 to 400 million. Surely not many could afford this extra buck on duty but some possibly could.

Possession of this ultimate brand of four wheeler is something special the aristocrats the world over savour. In Bangladesh aristocrats are hardly the top moneyed class. It is the ultra-rich or, as some would like to call, filthy rich who have the money at their disposal to own such cars. But they did not possibly go for the brand because it would have drawn closer attention from agencies like the National Board of Revenue and Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) or social backlash. What happened during the previous army-backed government may be an indication. At that time quite a few of the expensive cars were abandoned on the street just in panic. In case the owners who illegally imported those in collusion with the custom, excise and vat department got identified, they either hid those or abandoned on the unlikely points of street at wee hours!

Yet the ultra-rich section of society cannot avoid some vanity for societal pressures and pulls. For example, in some posh areas of Dhaka City, the residents' vanity is well fed if they keep their expensive cars right in front of their gates. Whether they drive those expensive cars or not, is immaterial; they want to show their prized possessions off. But after a movement of the August 5 order, the owners became cautious. The cars they deliberately placed for public view have suddenly disappeared. So the import of the more expensive and luxurious cars at this time could not happen unless those were ordered earlier.

The fact is money talks and does so in weird ways. Cars are a symptom, not the malaise. When the ill-gotten money accumulated at the expense of the rest of society starts talking, no one knows how the process will end up. For example, the Rolls Royce Beximco imported was burnt down. The system that gives rise to mindless inequality in society with no scientific and technological invention accompanied with--- more often than not--- devious development of entrepreneurships and businesses, presents opportunities for its correction. So, the nations that can learn lessons from the reversals of fortunes and mend their ways of wealth creation and its distribution in order to ensure socio-economic justice, have the right to live in peace and harmony. Bangladesh has one such opportunity right now, much will depend on how the country grabs it to rectify its system.​