The White Paper on the state of Bangladesh’s economy will include a review of “smuggled money”, according to the head of the committee, Debapriya Bhattacharya, entrusted to prepare the White Paper. We strongly endorse this initiative given the huge scale of stolen assets, but it must not end with a review.
Author: Anis Chowdhury, Khalilur Rahman & Ziauddin Hyder
Recovering Bangladesh’s stolen wealth
Bangladesh bleeds as over US$3 billion drains from Bangladesh annually through offshore accounts. According to a recent report, close to US$150 was siphoned off the country during 15 years of kleptocratic Hasina regime’s mis-rule. Nearly US$50 billion went out of the country in the first six years (2009-2015) of the
Dealing with Bangladesh’s odious debt
Bangladesh has become increasingly indebted since 2009. The country’s external debt stock increased from US$23.3 billion in 2008 to US$100.6 billion in December 2023 (see figure below). Thanks to the country’s mega-projects led so-called development with borrowed money under the now deposed authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina. The new government should