Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The outflow of black money from Bangladesh to foreign countries touched $13.16 billion in the 10 years between 2003 and 2012, making it the world’s 51st largest source of unaccounted money, said a report of Global Financial Integrity (GFI).
It said the illegal capital outflows stem from crime, corruption, tax evasion, trade misinvoicing and other forms of illicit activities.
The report titled “Illicit Financial Flows from the Developing World: 2003-2012,” released on Monday also found that the dirty money flown out from Bangladesh reached $1.78 billion in 2012 from only $593 million in 2011, showing a three fold increase in year-on-year basis.
The average illicit capital outflows from Bangladesh was recorded at an average $1.31 billion from 2003 through 2012, according to the report.
Expressing concern over such upward trajectory of illegal outflow of money from Bangladesh, economic analysts on Wednesday said that money laundering is one of the major obstacles towards socioeconomic development of the country in the present context.
Terming the money laundering as grievous crimes they urged the government to prevent it in strong hand
to eradicate the gradually escalating threats to the country caused by the financial crimes.
They also attribute to political uncertainty and indifference among the regulatory bodies for the rise in the illegal outflow of money from the country.
“Bangladesh is losing a sizeable amount of fund every year through money laundering or illegal transactions as politicians and industrialists are continuing to stashing away their funds into foreign banks in the wake of political instability here,” Dr Salehuddin Ahmed, former governor of Bangladesh Bank (BB), told The New Nation yesterday.
He said the money that was transferred abroad by politicians was earned through corruption and bribery.
Referring to the GFI report, he said, about 61 per cent of the illegal fund transfer from Bangladesh was occurred through under and overinvoicing during import and export level. “That means the regulatory bodies are yet to come out with measures to prevent such crimes committed by the local businessmen,” he added.
‘There might be some loopholes in the existing system and the traders are taking advantage of this in siphoning off funds,” he observed.
The former BB governor suggested the regulatory bodies to plug the loopholes immediately to prevent money laundering.
He also urged them to follow the banking and import guidelines strictly to curb the incident of money laundering.
“$13 billion is a massive amount of money for the Bangladesh economy that it lost in the last 10 years,” said Prof Mustafizur Rahman, Executive Director of Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
He said the fund which siphoned off during the period has very real consequences for Bangladesh economy as well as its citizens. It also led to revenues losses for the country.
When asked, he said, “If it could not be happened, the fund could have been used to invest in education, healthcare and upgrade the nation’s infrastructure helping economic growth.
Prof Mustafizur Rahman mentioned that the dishonest businessmen transferred money illegally from the country taking advantage of import goods under zero duties.
He also stressed the need for digitization and automation in the activities of banks and revenue board to prevent the illicit fund transfer from the country.
The US-based research and advocacy organisation finds developing and emerging economies lost $6.6 trillion in illicit financial flows from 2003 through 2012, with illicit outflows increasing at a staggering average rate of 9.4 percent per year-roughly twice as fast as global GDP.
According to the GFI report, top 10 countries with the highest measured cumulative illicit financial outflows between 2001 and 2010 were: China $2.74 trillion, Mexico $476 billion, Malaysia $285 billon, Saudi Arabia $210 billion, Russia $152 billion, Philippines $138 billion, Nigeria US$129 billion, India $123 billion, Indonesia $109 billion and United Arab Emirates $107 billion.
