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.