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Bangladesh Bank to sign data-sharing deal
Bangladesh is to sign a deal with Malaysia for information sharing in a desperate attempt to recover siphoned off money as part of its anti-graft campaign, officials said on Sunday.
- By Anisur Rahman, Correspondent
- Published: 23:49 August 10, 2008
Dhaka: Bangladesh is to sign a deal with Malaysia for information sharing in a desperate attempt to recover siphoned off money as part of its anti-graft campaign, officials said on Sunday.
They said Bangladesh Bank's financial intelligence unit was set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with their central bank counterpart in Kuala Lumpur in the next several days as negotiations were underway with 24 other countries for similar agreements.
The interim government, which was installed with crucial military support on January 12, 2007, spearheads a massive anti-graft campaign while army chief General Moeen U Ahmad recently said the authorities had "unbelievable" proof that the two major political parties resorted to corruption through mutual cooperation despite their harsh rivalry.
Officials earlier said according to their estimates millions of dollars were siphoned off the country by corrupt politicians but a process was underway to bring back the money while the corruption suspects were forced to return already $129 million (Dh473 million) .
Bangladesh Bank officials said the deal with Kuala Lumpur was focused on sharing information on money laundering to facilitate investigation of cases against the corruption suspects.
"The government will negotiate the issue of further cooperation in repatriation of the smuggled money later on," as many corruption suspects invested huge money in Malaysia taking advantage of the Malaysian "Second Home Project", a central bank official said on condition of anonymity.
Cash smuggling
A senior finance ministry official earlier told Gulf News that Bangladesh also applied for the membership in Egmond Group, a worldwide association of agencies operating against money laundering, alongside signing bilateral deals with several countries to return the smuggled money. Countries like Canada, UK, US and Australia have asked Bangladesh to become a member of Egmond Group.
The foreign ministry last year requested the Malaysian government to provide Bangladesh with a list of the people who had availed the opportunity of the Second Home Project but Malaysia did not respond to the proposal at that time.
But once the MoU is signed, Kuala Lumpur is expected at least to provide detailed information on a particular Bangladeshi, bank officials said.
The Daily Star newspaper reported 25 other countries with which the Bangladesh Bank is trying to pen similar agreements included India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Mauritius, Indonesia, Japan, Nepal, Maldives, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia.
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