UK to assist Dhaka in recovering smuggled off money

DHAKA: Britain has assured to assist the interim government in Bangladesh in recovering millions of dollars that were siphoned off abroad by corrupt politicians and officials during previous regimes.

Director for Asia at the UK foreign and commonwealth office John Dennis promised the British assistance in his meeting with Bangladeshs powerful Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) here on Tuesday.

"We are glad to help ACC in its activities. The anti-corruption drive is extremely important to create a responsible and responsive political society," the visiting British official said.

The ACC officials said they already gave information about two suspected money launders who smuggled out "huge amount" of money to UK as Britain sought specific information while the recovery cost will be paid off from the money recovered.

"We are working to strike a deal with the Scotland Yard for recovering the money smuggled off from the country," the ACC secretary Mukhles Ur Rahman yesterday told a daily adding that an agreement must be signed between the two countries for the cooperation to take place.

The development came weeks after ACC Chairman and retired lieutenant general Hasan Mashhud Chowhdury visited Scotland Yard, the British law enforcement agency.

Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed earlier this week urged the international community to help the interim non-party administration in recovering huge amounts of money siphoned off abroad as it spearheaded a massive anti-graft campaign since its installation in January this year.

Nearly 200 high profile politicians including two former prime ministers, businessmen and bureaucrats were arrested as part of the massive anti-graft campaign when the government also published three lists of influential corruption suspects containing 222 names.

The ACC or the Bangladesh Bank has no concrete account of the money but different government sources said, between the months of April and August this year, the government recovered more than Taka 3,315 crore of siphoned off money.

World Bank and Britains Department for International Development (DFID) and Scotland Yard earlier announced to extend hands to Bangladeshs efforts to repatriate the siphoned off money while officials said they were trying to reach deals with several foreign central banks to locate the ill-gotten gains abroad.

World Bank vice president Praful C Patel earlier said Bangladeshi assets had either been stolen or smuggled outside the country for the last several years while "corruption had eaten up nearly three per cent of the countrys growth rate".

A number of embassies including the Australian and the British high commissions also offered technical support and cooperation to the ACC's new effort of initiating an investigation of institutional corruption, expected to begin in December this year.