A media report says Bangladesh lost nearly $50 billion in six years to trade-related illicit financial flows through over-invoicing of imports and under-invoicing of exports, in addition to growing money laundering, according to data released by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity think tank on Friday. It comes to around Tk 4.25 trillion as per the current exchange rate. The GFI calculated the fraudulent invoicing-related financial losses from 2009 to 2018 of 135 countries but Bangladesh figures for 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2018 are not included. It calculated data from those countries from 2009 to 2018, but statistics from Bangladesh for four years were not available. GFI conducted the value gap analysis by examining official data for six years submitted by the governments each year for declared L/C values and real trade value to the United Nations trade analysis wing. Bangladesh’s average value gap in the six years stood at $8.27 billion.
This money accumulated through tax evasion and dodging customs duties moved to other global financial capitals and especially to 36 advanced economies for safe investment by big traders and wealthy people depriving Bangladesh of huge resources. It could otherwise help the country’s development budget and activities for job creation and income generation particularly when we need more resources to overcome the impact of the pandemic. We need extra resources to bail out people suffering from job loss and income loss. But powerful people are routinely resorting to massive corruption and money laundering to amass illicit wealth abroad.
The GFI report said the capital flight is growing from Bangladesh every year. This is a known problem but why the government is failing to stop it is not understandable. Why the government is indifferent and such stealing is taking place with the active support of some powerful people. It is difficult to understand why the government is failing to stop stealing of bank money, even to protect Bangladesh Bank’s vault. The finance minister last year gave a cold reaction to the GFI report saying he had no knowledge of the report when it made similar disclosure of huge capital flight from the country since 2009. We would say we must tighten our regulatory control over illicit trading to stop huge financial drainage. The government can’t shrug off from accountability in this regard.
