Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The Finance Minister A.MA. Muhith has failed to make public the Bangladesh Bank’s (BB) reserve heist probe report despite his repeated assurance to the nation in this regard.
Muhith on several occasions said that he would disclose the findings of the inquiry report to public as people by law has the right to know what is in the ‘bag’ and how far the government acted in a just and transparent way after the BB’s $101 million reserve heist from Federal Reserve Bank of New York on February 5 this year.
On March 19, the government formed a three-member probe body headed by former BB governor Dr Mohammed Farashuddin.
The probe body submitted its preliminary report to the Finance Minister in April and the final report on May 30.
While receiving the full probe report, Muhith told reporters that the government will make the report public within 15 to 20 days.
The Minister told Parliament during the budget session that the investigation report on the $101 million heist from the BB will be made public within the next few days.
Referring to the BB reserve heist the largest cyber scandal, Muhith in his budget speech for the fiscal year 2016-17 also said that he will make a statement over the issue in the House during the ongoing session.
The budget session begun on June 1 and concluded on June 27. But Muhith failed to make public the BB heist probe report and refrained from making statement in the Parliament over the issue.
“The report has been gathering dust on the shelves at the Ministry, with no directive to make it public,” a senior finance ministry official told The New Nation yesterday, requesting not to be named.
He said the Finance Minister alone can not make the report public without getting the nod from the government high-ups.
“It will require high-level government decision. As per our knowledge, such a decision remains pending making the Minister helpless,” he added. The Finance Ministry official, however, said that the government may be concentrating more on recovering the heist fund from the Philippines instead of making the report public.
When asked, former BB governor Mohammad Farashuddin said, “We have already produced the report to the government. Now they will decide whether they make the report public or not”.
