Ministries draw flak for loan scams, law and order slide

Parliament on Sunday passed the appropriation bill 2014 with a few independent and Jatiya Party lawmakers censuring the government over bank loan scams, sliding law and order and falling quality of public health services.
They raised the issues while moving cut motions against allocations for the ministries of finance, home, public administration, education, law, justice and parliamentary affairs, foreign affairs and communications.
The crucial issues they raised before the house for the first time generated a heated debate in the otherwise dull discussions on the budget for around 60 hours since June 5.
Tahjib Alam Siddique, an independent lawmaker, said higher allocation for the banks and financial institutions division under the ministry of finance meant that the state-owned banks would again provide shady loans and misappropriate public funds.
Earlier, finance minister AMA Muhith, who placed the bill in parliament for passage, demanded an allocation of Tk 772.90 crore for the bank and financial institutions division.
Tahjib said people would bear the brunt of loan scams, indicating the embezzlement of money from Sonali and BASIC banks in the last several years. Jatiya Party lawmaker Nurul Islam Milon joined the discussion saying that there would be more misappropriation of funds.
Independent lawmaker Rustum Ali Faraji said such loan scams, capital flight and depositing smuggled money in Swiss banks would have been impossible without direct patronage of the government.
Muhith in his reply said the government was taking action against the BASIC Bank. He assured the lawmakers that the board of directors of the BASIC Bank would be recast soon. He hoped that awareness of the lawmakers would help the government to strengthen its vigilance in future.
Mohammad Noman of Jatiya Party opposed the demand for allocation of Tk 11,369.68 crore to the ministry of home affairs saying that law enforcement agencies under the ministry had become a symbol of terror to the people instead of trust.
In his sharp criticism, he said the ministry should meet its expenditure from the extortion by the police. Rustum Ali and independent lawmaker Haji Selim, also a ruling party city leader, spoke on the unethical activities by the police and RAB.
They censured the public health sector and the country’s foreign policies.
Rustum Ali alleged that Dhaka had failed to lodge a strong protest against the killing of a Border Guard Bangladesh member by Myanmar border guards because of its ‘subservient’ foreign policy. He said the country’s problems with India on 54 rivers, including the Teesta, remained unresolved.
Selim and Noman asked parliament not to allocate any funds against the foreign ministry.
The Jatiya Party and independent lawmakers brought 249 cut motions against the demand for 56 appropriations. However, the cut motions were rejected by voice vote.
The appropriation bill 2014 was passed in parliament to allow the government to spend Tk 3,82,340 crore in
development and non-development budgets in the new fiscal beginning July 1.
The finance ministry received the highest allocation of Tk 44,517.51 crore, followed by the defence ministry which drew the second highest allocation of Tk 16,491.76 crore.
The education ministry received – the third highest of Tk 15,549 crore.
The local government division got Tk 15,486 crore, primary education ministry 13,676.52 crore, the agricultural ministry Tk 12,396 crore, ministry of health and family welfare 11,176.24 crore, ministry of food Tk 11,147.9 crore and power division Tk 9,248.17 crore.
Other major recipients are: bridges division – Tk 8,736.95 crore, ministry of disaster management – Tk 7,287.88 crore, road division – Tk 6,868.8 crore and railway ministry – Tk 6,463.11 crore.
With the passage of the appropriation bill, the Tk 2,50,506 crore budget for fiscal year 2014-15 placed in parliament on June 5 was also passed.
The new budget set an overall revenue earning target of Tk 1,82,954 crore with the share of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) revenue around Tk 1,49,720. The estimation of the overall budget deficit has been made keeping the budget deficit at 5 per cent of the GDP or Tk 67,552 crore.
On Saturday, parliament passed the finance bill with some major changes, retaining the provision for investing undisclosed money in purchase of flats and imposing fresh surcharge on mobile phone users.
Muhith scrapped tax on realised gains from stock investment for individual investors for improvement of the share market that remained hamstrung since the collapse in 2010 and 2011.
He was seemingly pressured by cell phone traders into reducing the duty to 5 per cent from the proposed 10 per cent and waiving income tax on cell phone import. He is also believed to have been persuaded by tobacco manufacturers into slashing supplementary duties to 60 per cent from the proposed 100 per cent on import of paper. He also slashed duty on non-refined tobacco to 60 per cent from the proposed 100 per cent for discouraging smuggling of cigarettes. He lowered tax to Tk 55.76 per square foot from the proposed Tk 90 on profit from sales of flat and houses.