Strange expenditure

The foreign ministry owes the home ministry Tk 3,786 crore which Bangladesh embassies and missions collected in passport and visa processing fees. The dues have accumulated over 16 years, and now the home ministry has asked the finance ministry to make the foreign ministry pay up.

Moreover, the home ministry learnt that some embassies were renewing machine readable passports (MRP) by hand, charging citizens $200, violating the passport issuance policy that says MRPs could only be reissued, not renewed.

The home ministry has no clue as to where the money received from MRP “renewal” went.

It has recently sent a “working paper” to the finance secretary for holding a meeting with the foreign ministry to settle the issues.

The Daily Star has obtained a copy of the “working paper”.

According to the document, the foreign ministry owed home ministry over Tk 1,586 crore for hand-written passports delivered between 2000 and 2016. During this period, Bangladesh embassies and missions distributed over 30 lakh hand-written passports.

The home ministry was supposed to get about Tk 2,052 crore the foreign ministry collected for Machine Readable Passports (MRP) between 2010 and 2016. During this period, Bangladeshi missions abroad delivered nearly 30 lakh MRPs.

It was also to get the Tk 148 crore the foreign ministry received in Machine Readable Visa (MRV) fees between 2012 and 2016, the working paper claimed.

The home ministry had requested the foreign ministry for the money but the foreign ministry did not respond.

According to the Department of Immigration and Passports (DIP), the money collected in fees for issuing passports and processing visas were deposited to foreign ministry accounts and the foreign missions spent the money for their own purposes.

Farid Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury, secretary of the Security Service Division under the home ministry, said, "We want transparency regarding public money and want to ensure accountability.

"We want government revenues to be deposited to the right place at the right time," he added.

 Selina Banu, additional director general of the DIP, said they wrote repeatedly to the foreign ministry for a financial statement but it did not respond.

"We also wrote to the Bangladesh embassies and missions to give us statements of the revenue collected in fees for issuing passports and processing visas by the 7th of every month. But only a few embassies gave us the statements," she said.

When asked where the money was, Selina said that in Kuala Lumpur she found that the embassy deposited the money to an account and spent it for its own purpose.

As per the “working paper”, 65 Bangladeshi missions gave over 30.30 lakh hand-written passports.

The Bangladesh embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, alone distributed 5,36,055 passports and the consulate office in Jeddah gave 3,90,655. This earned the government about Tk 356 crore in revenue.

Beside, 29.89 lakh MRPs were given to expatriates by 68 foreign missions between 2013 and December 31, 2016, which earned the government about Tk 2,052 crore.

According to the document, the highest numbers of MRPs were distributed from Riyadh (4,18,362) and Jeddah office (1,65,802) in Saudi Arabia.

Apart from this, distribution of 1,65,802 MRPs was outsourced in Saudi Arabia which earned the government over Tk 483 crore.

The government set fees for MRP is $100 (general) and $200 (emergency) while for Bangladeshi students and workers, the fees are $30 (general) and $100 (emergency).

Golam Moshi, Bangladesh ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told The Daily Star that the money the mission gets from different sectors is used for running day-to-day activities of the embassy as per the directives of the foreign ministry. "We send the surplus money to Dhaka," he added.

Asked why the embassy does not send the visa and passport fees to the home ministry, Moshi said, "May be the foreign ministry does that."

Shahriar Alam, state minister for foreign affairs, said, “I am not aware of this. It is not supposed to be like this. Government money is always deposited in government account."

He said sometimes foreign missions delay in reporting the money they had received.