THE amount of ‘black money’ in the economy is on a steady rise and Finance Minister AMA Muhith appears reluctant to take resolute actions to deal with the menace. News reports said quoting Muhith that he would launch a study on the proportion of black money in the economy next year and get the recommendations in the year after to see what can be done next year. The Minister made the comment to reporters and The New Nation published it last Thursday. He spoke on the issue as the debate is heating up on the size of the black money in the economy and its adverse impacts with participants from civil society organizations, business bodies and professional groups who are communicating their anger to the government and the Minister in particular prior to the formulation of the new budget.
As it appears the Finance Minister’s comment is suggestive in that he favours exemption of black money in the new budget this time too apparently to help the leaders and workers of the ruling party and the government functionaries who have amassed huge illegal wealth and the process is similarly at work. But questions arise when the Finance Minister will get the study report at the end of the 3rd year to start remedial measures in the 4th year, what may be the size of the black money in the economy by that time. His comment appears unfortunate by treating the people as fools while trying to provide cover to the illegal wealth and black money that the ruling party men, dishonest business and government functionaries made this year and the year before.
In fact a similar study on black money was carried out five years ago, but it appears that he neither made the findings public nor had taken any remedial action in the light of that report. He went back to the old practice again to bury the issue. We don’t know if any finance minister anywhere in the world would dare to ignore such a sensitive issue in the first place and moreover try to make the people fools by suggesting yet another study which would be staggered over at least three years.
Some previous reports said the size of the underground economy in 2011 varied from 45 percent to 81 percent of country’s total GDP. Yet another report said it was up to 60 percent of the GDP. The Global Financial Integrity report published in December 2012 revealed that Bangladesh lost around $14 billion in capital flight from 2001 to 2010, which in reality was untaxed money sent abroad by businesses and individuals.
The question is how to clean the economy of black money. It is unfair that most people will pay tax to the government but most wealthy businessmen and government leaders will not while enjoying all public utilities and civic services more than the common people. We ask the government to take steps to clean the ruling party leaders and workers of black money first along with dishonest businesses and public servants who are similarly avoiding declaration of their wealth and avoiding taxes. We also urge the Finance Minister to prove his sincere motives to the nation on this regard.
