Desk Report
Publish: 26 May 2022, 05:17 pm
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal || Photo: Collected
Finance
Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has said that the government is contemplating
amnesty for bringing the laundered money back into the country.
“We’re
thinking of announcing amnesty for bringing the smuggled money back,” he told
reporters in briefing after the two consecutive meetings of the Cabinet Committee
on Economic Affairs (CCEA) and Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase on
Thursday.
He said
Bangladesh Bank will make more announcements in this regard before the national
budget is placed in Parliament.
He said
the issue of amnesty will be reflected in the national budget.
"The
initiative will be taken by the Bangladesh Bank and announced by it through
circulars. But we don’t want to make any announcement in this regard before
placing the national budget in parliament”, he said.
The
finance minister’s remarks came in response to the reporters’ questions on the
government’s initiative as Bangladesh Bank recently announced that any person
will be allowed to bring in upto $5000 from abroad without any prior
declaration and no question will be asked about the source of the money.
Such an
announcement from the central bank came to encourage people to bring more US
dollars against the backdrop of its prevailing crisis.
Recently,
the greenback gained strength against the local currency as the dollar rate
went up to Tk 100 in the curb market while officially Bangladesh Taka (BDT) was
depreciated on a number of occasions.
Kamal
said the initiative is being taken mainly to bring back that money which was
laundered from the country.
He,
however, did not give any detail of the amount as to how much money was
laundered. “I can’t give you any idea how much money was laundered. But we
collect information from the media and other official and non-official
sources”, he said.
He said
different countries are announcing amnesty like tax exemption. “We’re also
thinking so”.
The
finance minister said he believes that the people who laundered money will take
advantage of the government’s amnesty as it is a good scope for them.
Responding
to a question on the issue, he said there is a dollar crisis. “But it’s not at
a level that would hamper our import. We have enough dollars in our reserves to
run the import business”, he said._UNB
Subscribe Shampratik Deshkal Youtube Channel
© 2024 Shampratik Deshkal All Rights Reserved. Design & Developed By Root Soft Bangladesh