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Bangladesh’s central bank has hired Big Four accountancy firms EY, Deloitte and KPMG to conduct an “asset quality review” of banks it claims lost $17bn to businesspeople close to the regime of former leader Sheikh Hasina, bank governor Ahsan Mansur has said.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mansur said the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit had also formed 11 joint investigation teams to track down and reclaim assets it believes were bought with the funds siphoned out of the banks and to help to prosecute those responsible.
Mansur, who was appointed central bank governor by interim national leader Muhammad Yunus after Sheikh Hasina fled to India in August, said the investigations would look at 10 leading Bangladeshi businesses as well as the ousted former leader and her relatives.
The governor said the three international accountancy firms had already begun work on the asset quality review. “We will determine how much assets are performing, who’s not performing, who took that asset, and simultaneously we will do a forensic audit,” he said.
KPMG confirmed its Sri Lanka firm had been contracted to support the review. EY and Deloitte did not respond to a request for comment.
Mansur, a former IMF official, has been tasked with helping to stabilise Bangladesh’s economy and beginning the process of recovering what he estimates is at least Tk2tn ($16.4bn) “robbed” from banks during the 15 years when Hasina and her Awami League party were in power.
In an interview in October, Mansur told the Financial Times that several leading banks had been taken over with the help of the country’s military intelligence agency, in some cases “at gunpoint”.
He said the asset quality review was looking at six banks, in which five had shares held by S Alam, a conglomerate headed by Singapore-based Bangladeshi tycoon Mohammed Saiful Alam.
“As part of that investigation, the old MDs of these banks have been asked to take leaves of absence so that quality is unhindered and the asset review is not interfered with,” Mansur said.
Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission this month filed a case against several people, including two of Alam’s sons, charging them with embezzling Tk11.3bn in the form of loans. A Dhaka court ordered the seizure of several properties in connection with the case.
Alam’s lawyers Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan told the FT that he and investors in the conglomerate had “committed no wrongdoing, and they are prepared to commence legal proceedings to protect their investments in Bangladesh, if necessary”.
Quinn Emanuel said Alam and the group’s investors “welcome transparency and the application of international standards”, but that Mansur’s position was conflicted as the principal driver of the Yunus government’s task force on banking sector reforms.
Alam’s lawyers, who last month wrote to Yunus warning they were prepared to launch international arbitration if they could not solve their dispute with Dhaka, said accusations of money laundering, and any other allegations, against the businessman and his family were “baseless”.
The Yunus government has enlisted international help in its efforts to trace and reclaim money it claims was taken out of the country, including from the UK’s International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre and the US Treasury. The Treasury is offering Yunus’s advisers technical assistance as Bangladesh prepares to make formal requests for legal assistance from other countries.
Bangladesh’s interim leaders have welcomed the resignation this month as UK City minister of Tulip Siddiq, a Labour party member of parliament who is Hasina’s niece, which they believe will draw attention to their broader drive to reclaim missing money.
Siddiq stepped down after she was named in two ongoing ACC corruption probes in Bangladesh and faced allegations that she had benefited from properties linked to her aunt’s Awami League
A spokesperson for Siddiq said this month that no evidence had been presented for the allegations against her and that she “totally denies the claims”.
Mansur said public pressure had forced Siddiq’s resignation.
“We are encouraged by the response from the international community,” he said. “Politicians are aware of it and hopefully they will be under public pressure at home to support this cause.”
Additional reporting by Redwan Ahmed in Dhaka
