Finance minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali on Sunday said that the next course of action should be launching crackdown on loan defaulters after the exchange rate problem was almost fixed.聽聽
鈥業 want to bring the errant borrowers to book,鈥� he said while talking to reporters at his Secretariat office.
Earlier, visiting International Monetary Fund executive director Krishnamurthy Venkata Subramanian met聽 with the finance minister ahead of the expected disbursement of $1.1 billion under the current $4.5 billion loan programme. Against the backdrop of the dollar shortage and high inflation, the government rushed to the IMF for financial assistance.聽聽聽聽
Answering a question whether actions can be taken against powerful loan defaulters, he said, 鈥楲et鈥檚 see if it can be done.鈥�
The finance minister noted that former inspector general of police Benazir Ahmed was caught.
Besides, corruption of the former army chief Aziz Ahmed was highlighted in the newspaper, he said, adding that the army could take action against him.聽
Mahmood Ali is going to announce his first budget on June 6.
He said that his main tasks were to bring back the economy on track by increasing the flow of dollars, check inflation and mobilise higher revenue.
The budget would have reflections of pledges made before the past general election by the ruling party, he said.聽聽聽
He further said that Bangladesh Bank governor Abdur Rauf Talukder was working to check inflation, hovering over 9 per cent on average for the past 23 months.
The finance minister criticised local dailies for portraying the BB management as irresponsible for imposing entry restrictions on reporters.聽聽聽
He was also critical about economist Debapriya Bhattacharya saying that his tone of criticism of the government was similar to that of mainstream political parties.
He hoped that the IMF would disburse the third instalment of the current loan programme in the current month.
IMF has already disbursed $1.1 million in previous two tranches.