Dawn shows the day: Salehuddin on interim govt’s successes

Finance Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed while highlighting the successes of the interim government in the macroeconomic
sector till date said the sun has already risen and it is not surrounded by
darkness.

“While talking about the successes, I think dawn shows the day. The sun has
already risen and it’s not surrounded by darkness…Yes it’s true that
expectations are there, but we didn’t make a bad start,” he said.

The Finance Adviser was addressing a press conference at the Multipurpose
Hall of the Finance Ministry at Bangladesh Secretariat today.

He said the interim government has inherited devastating economic challenges
from the previous Awami League (AL) government and those could not be
perceived from outside.

“From the banking sector to the capital market, there was a bleak scenario
everywhere, even irregularities and corruption were marked in development
projects,” he added.

Dr Salehuddin said the government and his ministry have been working
tirelessly to put everything on the right track. “We’re trying hard to
correct all those anomalies,” he said.

The Finance Adviser, however, admitted that the interim government has
inherited the creativity, skills, capacity and patriotism of the country’s
people.

The government is pursuing austerity measures in its operations as
unnecessary foreign trips by government staff are being discouraged while the
procurement of government vehicles also remained stopped except for some
urgent causes, he mentioned.

“We’re trying to control our expenditure and the budget deficit. The
challenges before us are to mobilize more revenues… If we don’t increase
revenue generation, then we wouldn’t be able to finance our development
projects,” he said, adding that the budget would also be rationalized.

To bring discipline in the financial sector, the Finance Adviser said that
the government is scrutinizing the projects under the Annual Development
Programme (ADP) to figure out which projects were taken politically or
unnecessarily.

Talking about the banking sector, he said steps are being taken from the
Bangladesh Bank (BB) to streamline the banking sector.

Dr Salehuddin said the symptoms of the banking sector in the previous regime
were that the management and governance of banks were bad while following the
changeover of power some banks are trying to revive with policy support from
the central bank.

The Islami Bank is reviving although it was a challenge, he mentioned,
adding:”Although some banks are struggling, but we don’t have any plan to
close down any bank.”

The Finance Adviser said there were weaknesses in the management of the
central bank itself while weaknesses are still there. “The Bangladesh Bank
itself needed to be reformed. Reform in laws won’t only work, monitoring,
supervision and policy making also needed to be reformed,” he added.

About the state of the capital market, he acknowledged that the small
investors are suffering to some extent while the government is trying to
compensate them although it would take some time.

Highlighting some of the government’s steps to boost the capital market
including the support of Taka 3,000 crore to the Investment Corporation of
Bangladesh (ICB) to revive the market, he said efforts are on to bring in the
new companies to deepen further the market penetration.

Dr Salehuddin said the government is immediately trying to salvage those
banks which are in bad state as well as to support those which are performing
better.

“On the whole, our reform initiatives and actions in the financial sector
have been taken for ensuing peoples’ welfare and for gaining long-term
benefits…We’ll not take any ad-hoc basis solution,” he added.

Putting emphasis on more modernization of services and operations by the
National Board of Revenue (NBR), the Adviser said that the submission of e-
returns has crossed four lakh. The NBR would expedite its operations to
atomize fully the income tax, customs and VAT, he added.

He further said the NBR should have to be very transparent in their
operations so that the businessmen and general taxpayers do not get afraid of
the revenue board.

About the response of the development partners towards the interim
government, Dr Salehuddin, also a former central bank Governor, said that
they have seen the sign of some serious commitments and actions by the
development partners.

“We’ve got a very good response, but still we’ve a lot to do,” he added.

Regarding inflation, he said it has not grown overnight and it is also a
complex issue adding that the previous regime had printed Taka 60,000 crore
which had also created a problem.

The Adviser said that the interim government has already reduced the arrear
bills from US$2.5 billion to $400 million without taking a single amount from
the foreign currency reserves.

Citing that reforms in various sectors are a continuous process, he said the
interim government is immediately carrying out some short-term reforms while
the long-term reforms would be left for the successive government.

“We’ll leave a footprint…We’re giving an outline of reforms and the
successive government will follow those,” he added.

Citing various steps by the government against corruption and money
laundering, he said, “We’re giving a message so that everyone will dare to
loot, launder money …We’re giving guidelines to the authorities and it’s
all for building a welfare-oriented state,” he added.

Finance Secretary Dr Khairuzzaman Mozumder, NBR Chairman Md Abdur Rahman
Khan, ERD Secretary Shahriar Kader Siddiky and Financial Institutions
Division Secretary Nazma Mobarek were present. (BSS)