Desk Report
Published: 19 Aug 2021, 11:15 pm
Evaly Owner Mohammad Rassel (Photo: Collected)
Evaly owes Tk 544 crore to its consumers and merchants, according to a top official from the commerce ministry.
Hafizur Rahman, an assistant secretary to the
ministry and head of the e-commerce bureau said, the company has assets of
roughly Tk 544 crore, both tangible and intangible.
Of the Tk 544 crore, the company claims it has Tk
105 crore intangible assets as of July 15 and the remaining amount as a brand
value and other assets.
The e-commerce platform disclosed the details in
documents submitted to the commerce ministry today in response to the
ministry's show-cause notice, in which Evaly was asked to detail its liabilities
to customers and merchants, as well as its assets, and explain how it planned
to settle the liabilities.
Evaly can submit the details of their accounts and
documents by September 2 as the commerce ministry allowed it to submit the
documents in three phases.
Evaly did not show any plan of fresh investment in
the first phase of the document, said Rahman, also the chief of the World Trade
Organisation Cell of the Commerce Ministry.
Local Jamuna Group has recently proposed to invest
Tk 1,000 crore in Evaly to salvage it. "Evaly may show it in its next
submission if the discussion of investment by Jamuna takes place," Rahman
said.
No decision was taken about another e-commerce
company eorange yet, he said.
On July 19, the ministry sent a letter to Evaly
asking it to explain by August 1 how it would settle its current liabilities to
customers and merchants.
Evaly's reply came on the last day of the deadline.
In its reply to the notice of the ministry, Evaly
said it wanted to have its financial statements audited by a third party and
set a valuation of the company. So, it needs six months for a full explanation.
On August 11, the e-commerce platform gets three
weeks to respond to the commerce ministry's show-cause notice.