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Workers Party of Bangladesh president Rashed Khan Menon on Monday demanded the formation of a special commission to rein in rampant corruption, confiscate the assets of the corrupt, and set up a tribunal to try the embezzlers.

Menon, whose party is a partner of the ruling Awami League-led alliance, made these demands while participating in the general discussion on the proposed budget for the fiscal year 2024–25 in the Jatiya Sangsad.

Menon said that vile ‘oligarchs’ were controlling the country’s economy, while the runaway inflation serving the interests of the ‘oligarchs’ could not be curbed. ‘Rising commodity prices, corruption, money laundering, looting and anarchy in the banking sector and mounting defaulted loans have pushed the country’s economy towards a fragile state,’ he said.

Measures to restore the economy bringing relief to the public life and state were the call of the moment, he said, while lamenting that no effective measures were seen in the budget to that end.

Menon also observed that the market syndicate was playing its old game as usual.

‘The government admits that there is a syndicate. But I don’t see any initiative to break the syndicate,’ he said, adding that there was no denying that the picture of corruption by former police chief and army chief is only the tip of the iceberg.

‘If this spread of corruption is not stopped by taking special measures now, the development progress of the country will be crushed by the iceberg,’ he added.

‘But unfortunately, we see here that the Police Service Association threatened the journalists for reporting corruption from. Many ministers are calling this information speculative,’ he said.

The United States Financial Intelligence Institution has shown that $7 billion were being smuggled out of Bangladesh every year, Menon mentioned, adding that this money was invested in ‘Begum Para’ in Canada, second home in Malaysia, modern shopping malls in Singapore and Dubai, real estate and hundi business.

‘There is no initiative to bring back the smuggled money. But the expatriates are being taxed on the income from their back-breaking labour they send to the country,’ he said.

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Former finance minister Abdul Maal Muhith tried to form the ‘Bank Commission’ to restore good governance in the banking sector, he said. ‘But the next finance minister dumped that idea.’

Opposing the opportunity to legalise undisclosed money, Menon said that when opportunities were afforded for whitening looted money by paying half the tax of honestly earned money, it amounted to a reprimand for honesty and a reward for dishonesty.

All the arguments being given in this regard were not only dumb, but also contrary to the past position of the government in this regard, he observed.

Referring to the murder of AL lawmaker Anwarul Azim, Menon said that the image of the gold and drug smuggling and criminal world of the country’s south-western region was coming to the fore in media reports damaging the parliament’s image.

The Workers Party leader also castigated the government referring to its making no progress in the water sharing treaty of River Teesta, while receiving India’s proposal of cooperation in the river’s management in Bangladesh during the prime minister’s just concluded visit to the neighbouring country,

‘We don’t know where the Teesta water distribution agreement went. This cooperation without the agreement is tantamount to cutting the roots of a tree, while watering its branches,’ he said.

Menon also mentioned that although the prime minister spoke about the Teesta Master Plan in the parliament, the budget had no allocation for it.