A white paper on Bangladesh’s economy, presented to Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, claimed $234 billion was illegally siphoned out of the country, some through and to India. The report, highlighting economic mismanagement during the Hasina regime, is being seen to be portraying the Yunus-led government as inheriting a struggling economy.
A white paper submitted to the caretaker government of Bangladesh claims $234 billion was siphoned off from Bangladesh during the rule of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and some of the money was routed through and to India. The white paper is seen as an attempt by the Muhammad Yunus-led government to show that it inherited a tattered economy.
An average $16 billion may have been illicitly siphoned out of Bangladesh annually during former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, according to the findings of a committee formed by interim leader Muhammad Yunus.
As part of its investigations, the committee looked into seven large projects out of 29 which had more than 100 billion taka ($836 million) expenditure outlay each.
The governor said Mohammed Saiful Alam, founder and chair of industrial conglomerate S Alam, and his associates had “siphoned off” at least $10bn “as a minimum” from the banking system after taking control of banks with the help of the DGFI. “Every day they were granting loans to themselves,” he said.
The panel led by economist Debapriya Bhattacharya submitted a white paper on the state of Bangladesh’s economy to Yunus in Dhaka on Sunday, according to a government statement.
Sheikh Hasina was ousted by student protesters in August after 15 years of increasingly authoritarian rule. The army and protest leaders tapped Nobel laureate Yunus, who pioneered microcredit to the poor, to lead an interim government.
“It will show us the economy we inherited after the July-August mass uprising,” Yunus said while receiving the report from Debapriya Bhattacharya, the chairman of the committee tasked with finding the status of Bangladesh’s economy.
Several Bangladeshi media outlets on Monday reported on the contents of the white paper, which was presented to Yunus. The report, called the ‘White Paper on State of Bangladesh Economy’ will be made public on Monday, December 2.
The $234 billion was laundered to or routed via India, the UAE, the UK, Canada, the US, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and other tax havens. The money was laundered between 2009 and 2023, when a Hasina-led Awami League government was in power, The Daily Star reported, citing the white paper.
Up to $24 billion of the $60 billion invested in the Annual Development Programme and other development projects during the Hasina regime “has been lost to political extortion, bribery and inflated budgets”, the Dhaka-based The Business Standard quoted sources on the white paper committee as saying.
The white paper on economy also revealed that construction costs of infrastructure projects in Bangladesh are substantially higher than those of regional counterparts, including India, yet the quality of infrastructure is comparatively lower, according to a report on the Dhaka-based The Business Standard.
The committee was set up on August 28, and was tasked with giving a clear picture of Bangladesh’s economy during the Hasina regime, which opposition leaders have been accusing of rampant corruption and crony capitalism.
The committee that authored the white paper was led by economist Debapriya Bhattacharya. He is also a distinguished fellow of the Dhaka-based think tank Centre for Policy Dialogue, according to a Daily Star report.
The white paper revealed that the banking sector was the worst hit among all other sectors that the committee looked into. The Dhaka-based Business Standard also reported that 10 banks were “technically bankrupt and illiquid”.
“We chose 10 distressed banks to dig into their solvency and liquidity. Of the 10 banks, two are state-owned banks that were mostly hit by scams in the last decade,” it said, quoting parts of the white paper. “The other eight are extremely weak shariah-based banks and conventional private commercial banks.”
Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh on August 5, after a month’s protest that saw hundreds dead.
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