No pace in Finance Ministry due to inaction of Finance Minister!
The driving force of any country's government is the financial sector. Experts believe that if there is discipline in the financial sector, the success of the government will increase rapidly. But over the past few years, there has been a lot of discussion and criticism about the discipline of the financial sector in Bangladesh, but there is no sign of turning around. The ministers have changed, the officials have changed but the indiscipline creators have not changed. On the contrary, they are pursuing their own interests in the existing situation.
Former Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith during the Awami League-led grand alliance government promised to take action at various times but could not take appropriate action due to invisible reasons. The then Planning Minister AHM Mostofa Kamal is the present Finance Minister. Since then, the current finance minister has tried to talk about his plans for the finance sector in various ways.
After the 11th parliamentary election, the opportunity came to AHM Mustafa Kamal. He took charge as the Finance Minister on January 8, 2019. Although he stood in Parliament on June 13, 2019 to present the first budget of his life after taking charge as the Finance Minister, he could not present the budget despite repeated attempts due to his serious illness. Then the Leader of the House Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina presented the first budget.
Due to Chikungunya, the finance minister returned home from the hospital the day before the budget was presented, but the illness was so severe that he was rarely seen in the entire budget session. After recovery from Chikungunya, the finance minister did not go to his ministry in the secretariat that year for fear of dengue. He then started his office in his ministry in early 2020, but since March, everything has come to a standstill due to the coronavirus.
However, after the corona lockdown, other ministries and offices were opened but the finance minister did not go to the office for fear. Most of the meetings at this time are being held virtually. But his big achievement is success in various indicators of the economy. Even though everything was opened, the finance minister still took part virtually all the meetings.
The former finance minister announced to make the bank policy. The current finance minister also kept pace with his tune but it has been two years now and he is still in the thick of that policy. The first year of the finance minister has been spent in fear of Chikungunya, the second year is being spent in fear of corona.
It has been reported that the finance minister has not come face to face with the media for almost a year. Here also it is known as corona fear. As the regular meetings of the Ministry of Finance are being held in virtual, many decisions are difficult to take immediately, his ministry officials said.
After becoming finance minister, he went abroad a few times. In the meantime, he went to Singapore on November 28, 2020 for eye treatment. After staying there for 43 days, he returned to the country on January 10, 2021. The pace of work of the ministry slowed down as he was out of the country for 13 consecutive months. However, the finance minister used to decide on some issues through video conferencing.
However, Prashant Kumar Haldar alias PK Haldar and his associates from four non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs) have fled abroad after embezzling TK. 3,000 crore. Haldar's incident took place on September 27, 2020. So far no strong instruction or statement has come from the finance minister in this regard.
Opposition MPs slammed the Finance Minister whenever they got a chance in Parliament. Opposition MPs Kazi Firoz Rashid, Rumin Farhana and others raised the question of who runs the finance ministry with a bill passed on February 5, 2020.
Rumin Farhana, a BNP MP in Parliament, said, "The liquidity crisis in the bank is on the verge of destroying the share market due to money laundering and bad loans." However, he (Finance Minister) has been able to establish himself as a very big industrialist from the ordinary situation. Tk. 76 thousand crore are laundered every year. He can't do anything. He is so talented but he did nothing about the stock market, defaulted loans. Who actually runs his ministry? '
Jatiya Party's Kazi Firoz Rashid said, "He recovered the laundered money. The banking sector has collapsed, look at that. Stop money laundering. You can't do these things. I don't really know who runs this ministry. '
At the ECNEC meeting of the National Economic Council on March 2, the allocation for the revised Annual Development Program (ADP) for the fiscal year 2020-2021 was reduced by 3.26 percent to Tk. 1,97,643 crore. But the finance minister was not present at the meeting. Although the government chief attended the virtual meeting, the finance minister was not. There is a lot of criticism about this.