Economic Reporter :
The Commerce Ministry has decided to provide 3-5 days to the controversial e-commerce platform Evaly for explaining its assets and liabilities.
Besides, Evaly will get 7-day to explain its liabilities to the customers and 3 weeks to inform its merchants, said MD Hafizur Rahman, additional secretary of the Commerce Ministry.
Information will be collected from Joint Stock Company, vat and income tax wings aiming to verify the information provided by Evaly, he said.
The committee believes that the given time should be enough for Evaly to provide the explanations, additional secretary said, adding that further decision will be taken if Evaly fails to provide the required explanation within the fixed time.
Customers who are yet to get refund for their products, have been asked to lodge complaint urgently to the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection while merchants have been also asked to file complaint.
Earlier on 19 July, the commerce ministry had sent a letter to Evaly, asking it to explain how it will clear its current liabilities to customers and merchants.
The commerce secretary said they would have to resort to court to pay off Evaly’s debts from the money in its bank accounts or by selling its current assets.
Before that following reports published in various news paper recently based on the central bank’s report on Evaly, a number of banks, including Dhaka Bank, Bank Asia and Brac Bank, suspended the use of their debit, credit and prepaid cards for online transactions with 10 e-commerce companies.
Besides, bKash on 17 July suspended its payment services with 10 online merchants, including Evaly, citing protection of customers’ interest as a cause.
The other merchants are Alesha Mart, Dhamaka Shopping, E-orange, Sirajgonj Shop, Aladinerprodip, Qcoom, BoomBoom Shopping, Adyan Mart, and Needs.
Besides, a Dhaka court has imposed a travel ban on Rassel, the managing director of Evaly, and his wife Shamima Nasrin, also the chairman of the company, from travelling abroad amid an ongoing probe into charges of embezzlement against the e-commerce company.
