Muhith blasts BB again

Finance minister AMA Muhith on Monday once again disparaged the Bangladesh Bank for keeping him in dark about the biggest ever cyber theft from the Bangladesh Bank’s reserve, in the name of ‘secrecy’, and even informing the Prime Minister about the incident two days after the case was detected by the central bank.
In an outburst directed at the BB’s top management, he said the central bank had shown audacity by keeping him in dark about the theft of $101 million from the BB’s reserve with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
‘I was not informed about the theft of Bangladesh Bank reserve although they [BB officials] detected the theft on February 7.  I’m a minister under oath. But I was kept in darkness about such a sensitive matter in the name of maintaining secrecy,’ a minister quoted Muhith as saying in the cabinet.
Even the Prime Minister was informed about the matter on February 9, the finance minister said.
On March 12, BB governor Atiur Rahman told a correspondent of a Bangladesh daily in New Delhi that he had talks with the Prime Minister about the theft from the central bank’s reserve. He was attending a conference there.
Muhith raised the issue after commerce minister Tofail Ahmed picked up the subject in the cabinet meeting chaired by prime minister Sheikh Hasina at the secretariat, a minister told New Age.
The Prime Minister, however, did not give her opinion in the matter and neither did any of his fellow cabinet members, according to the minister. Instead, the road transport minister Obaidul Quader made a light-hearted remark on the finance minister’s attire, after which Muhith fell into silence and the subject was diverted.
In the wake of widespread media coverage of the incident, the Bangladesh Bank in a recent statement said they had maintained secrecy over the theft of its reserve for the sake of investigation into the matter.
A committee of the central bank began an investigation into the matter soon after the suspected Chinese hackers broke into the security system of the Bangladesh Bank and successfully transferred $81 million to the Philippines and $20 million to Sri Lanka on February 5.
But the finance minister was not even informed about the measures taken by the BB immediately after the biggest ever cyber theft through the banking channel, according to officials.
On March 7, central bank governor Atiur Rahman sent a letter to the finance minister informing him about the theft after the incident had already grabbed the headlines in the local and foreign media.
Muhith on Sunday lambasted the BB saying action will be taken against the officials concerned for not informing him about the theft of the central bank’s reserve.
Cyber security experts have said computer hackers could not have had access to central bank’s security code without any assistance from Bangladesh Bank officials.
People in Bangladesh came to know about the theft on March 7 through the media after a newspaper in Philippines on February 28 broke the report that Bangladesh’s money was laundered into the country.
Monday’s cabinet approved the draft Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha Bill, 2016 that would replace the ordinance of 1979 under which the national new agency was established, cabinet secretary Muhammad Shafiul Alam said.
All such ordinances made during the martial law regimes have already been nullified by the Supreme Court, he added.
The cabinet also endorsed the draft Bangladesh Press Institute Bill, 2016 as the institute was established to impart training to working journalists in 1976 under a resolution, the cabinet secretary mentioned.