MEDIA reports said the government has backtracked from the earlier decision of publishing the probe report into the heist of Bangladesh Bank reserves. Some BB officials persuaded Finance Minister not to make the Farashuddin-report public early this year when he presented the report saying it could harm the recovery efforts. The Finance Minister however promised he would do it later and his refusal now highlights greater misgivings. What we know from different media report on the money heist from New York Federal Reserve Bank in February this year is most inconsistent from what the BB officials now tend to say by not publishing the report. The reserve heist is definitely the deadly breach of the financial security system and for that, in our view the probe report should be published no matter how much stresses that the vested interest groups are bringing on the government.In March, the government instituted the three-member investigation committee led by former BB governor Mohammad Farashuddin into the $101 million heist case from BB’s account with New York. The probe committee submitted their final report on May 30 where it strongly recommended for making the findings public. The scandalous reserve heist forced the then BB governor along with two deputy governors to resign while the story made global headlines for quite some time. We don’t know why the government bowed on pressure to refrain from making the probe report public. It means that people’s supposition about involvement of insiders from Bangladesh Bank to money heist is correct, but what hinders particularly the Finance Minister from making the truth public is the biggest question. Whom they want to protect? It is said that the probe committee has clearly detected involvement of insiders and now if the government makes their identity known, they will be individually held accountable. If not, the entire government will be accountable for the cover up and why the government is taking the risk is yet another question. Questions were raised at that time about the integrity of an Indian security expert who was in overall charge of the cyber safety. BB had also hired the cyber firm he had earlier work for and engaged it to update its safety system. The involvement of at least four persons was detected but the government would not open the mystery to the nation. We know that the Philippines authorities have already said only a small part of the $81 million could be retrieved. The Philippines Senate however tried its best holding month long public hearing. But at our end things never become public breaking the official probe process. Now the case appears closing to the end. The report is remaining secret when nobody is accountable for the public money lost.
