Bangladesh News

The government is going to form a ‘central authority’, which will coordinate signing of the memorandum of understanding with six countries including Malaysia to recover siphoned off money.

The central authority will have members from the home ministry, the Attorney General’s Office, and other government bodies. It will coordinate the process of bringing back the stolen assets from foreign countries, said Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Salehuddin Ahmed.

He was talking to journalists yesterday after a meeting of the national taskforce on recovering the smuggled money.

Sources said the taskforce has been notified that Malaysian authorities declined to provide the list of Bangladeshis who had invested there under the Second Home Project.

The foreign ministry had asked the Bangladesh High Commission in Malaysia for gathering information about the Bangladeshis who made investments in Malaysia. “Malaysian authorities declined to give the list,” a source said.

Sources said the government is going to form the central authority following suggestions of the World Bank.

The WB as part of its ongoing support in recovering the smuggled out money prescribed the government to form such an

authority, which will work to sign MoU initially with six countries.

The countries are Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The meeting has been told that to improve skill of officials in recovering stolen assets, 10 government officials will take part in a training course organised by WB and titled “Stolen Assets Recovery” in Switzerland from February 28 to March 10.

The trainees include four officials from the Bangladesh Bank, two from DGFI, two from Criminal Investigation Department (CID), one from National Board of Revenue and the other from the Attorney General’s Office.

The officials have already taken part in a three-day workshop in Dhaka last month organised by the World Bank.

The national taskforce asked different government agencies to provide the detailed list of people who smuggled out money.

It also sought cooperation of the Anti-Corruption Commission in dealing with the process of recovering the money.

“The taskforce sought detailed information about the persons against whom cases have been filed for smuggling money out of the country,” a source said.

The taskforce at the meeting asked the finance ministry to negotiate with the law ministry for quick passage of the Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance 2007.

The governor said the ordinance will have a clause which empowers the central bank or the government for signing agreements with foreign countries in recovery of stolen assets.