UNB, Dhaka :
Terming siphoning off money a serious criminal offence, Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Sunday admitted that it is very difficult to trace those involved in such acts with limited manpower in different government agencies.
“Siphoning off money…the problem is that it’s taking place, and there are news in the media, too. But, how you’ll detect it … it’s very hard,” he said.
The Finance Minister was speaking at a pre-budget meeting with chairmen of different parliamentary standing committees at the NEC-II in city’s Sher-e-Bangla nagar area.
Muhith said, many have houses in Malaysia or posh apartments in Dubai, “But how do you detect that? We’ve some intelligence agencies as well as there is NBR, Bangladesh Bank, police but I don’t know how do you catch those? This is a serious offence against the nation.”
He also sought suggestions from the parliamentary standing committee chairmen in this regard.
Talking about strengthening the rural economy, the Finance Minister insisted that there should be a decision banning setting up of industries in the capital.
In the coming years, he said, districts should be the government’s main focus as its ultimate goal is to channel a larger portion or more than 50 percent of the national budget to the districts.
Turing to education, the Finance Minister said the MPO system has destroyed the standard of education, especially the secondary one.
Muhith said the government is now discontinuing with the MPO and hinted that a new scheme may be introduced in the fiscal 2016 where schools would get government grants based on availability for the area, number of students and teachers qualifications.
“I’m personally very unhappy with the MPO system,” Muhith said suggesting the parliamentary standing committee chairmen to put forward their recommendations to this end to the Education Ministry.
The Finance Minister said it would not be possible to put the new scheme in the new budget for FY 15.
Responding to the lawmakers’ suggestions to limit the countrywide possession of lands by the private sector and corporate houses, the Finance Minister said there could be steps to enforce it nationally.
About the huge losses incurred every year by the state-run jute mills, he said the government should get out of all the jute mills under the BJMC as those are incurring losses of thousands of crores of Tk every year.
In this connection, he said there is no government enterprise in the RMG sector as all are in private ownership and the sector is doing well.
The Finance Minister said the Tk 2.50 lakh crore national budget for the next fiscal year would not be ambitious as all the budgets in the last five years were not ambitious rather those were realistic.
He hinted that the ADP size for the next fiscal year would stand at around Tk 78,000 crore while the revenue budget would witness a substantial rise.
Muhith said, the domestic resource mobilisation in the last five years has increased by 3 percent of the GDP and the target for the next five years is to increase it by 5 percent of GDP.
Terming siphoning off money a serious criminal offence, Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Sunday admitted that it is very difficult to trace those involved in such acts with limited manpower in different government agencies.
“Siphoning off money…the problem is that it’s taking place, and there are news in the media, too. But, how you’ll detect it … it’s very hard,” he said.
The Finance Minister was speaking at a pre-budget meeting with chairmen of different parliamentary standing committees at the NEC-II in city’s Sher-e-Bangla nagar area.
Muhith said, many have houses in Malaysia or posh apartments in Dubai, “But how do you detect that? We’ve some intelligence agencies as well as there is NBR, Bangladesh Bank, police but I don’t know how do you catch those? This is a serious offence against the nation.”
He also sought suggestions from the parliamentary standing committee chairmen in this regard.
Talking about strengthening the rural economy, the Finance Minister insisted that there should be a decision banning setting up of industries in the capital.
In the coming years, he said, districts should be the government’s main focus as its ultimate goal is to channel a larger portion or more than 50 percent of the national budget to the districts.
Turing to education, the Finance Minister said the MPO system has destroyed the standard of education, especially the secondary one.
Muhith said the government is now discontinuing with the MPO and hinted that a new scheme may be introduced in the fiscal 2016 where schools would get government grants based on availability for the area, number of students and teachers qualifications.
“I’m personally very unhappy with the MPO system,” Muhith said suggesting the parliamentary standing committee chairmen to put forward their recommendations to this end to the Education Ministry.
The Finance Minister said it would not be possible to put the new scheme in the new budget for FY 15.
Responding to the lawmakers’ suggestions to limit the countrywide possession of lands by the private sector and corporate houses, the Finance Minister said there could be steps to enforce it nationally.
About the huge losses incurred every year by the state-run jute mills, he said the government should get out of all the jute mills under the BJMC as those are incurring losses of thousands of crores of Tk every year.
In this connection, he said there is no government enterprise in the RMG sector as all are in private ownership and the sector is doing well.
The Finance Minister said the Tk 2.50 lakh crore national budget for the next fiscal year would not be ambitious as all the budgets in the last five years were not ambitious rather those were realistic.
He hinted that the ADP size for the next fiscal year would stand at around Tk 78,000 crore while the revenue budget would witness a substantial rise.
Muhith said, the domestic resource mobilisation in the last five years has increased by 3 percent of the GDP and the target for the next five years is to increase it by 5 percent of GDP.
