The government's high-ups have talked about their "firm stances" against graft to protect the country's GDP on multiple occasions. However, there is little reflection of that stance in the latest budget disclosure as to how the government will curb corruption and money laundering.

In the last five fiscals, the government mentioned its plans regarding the issue and how it was supporting the Anti-Corruption Commission to fight corruption. However, this aspect was absent in the latest budget speech made by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal.

"According to a reliable estimation, around $12 billion is laundered abroad on average every year. It is not unknown to the government that if the corruption could have been curbed to even a medium level, the GDP growth would be increased by 2-3 percent," said Transparency International Bangladesh in a statement released on Friday.

Last September, the Criminal Investigation Department of police gave a partial estimation where it said Bangladesh may have lost around $7.8 billion (around Tk 75,000 crore) in remittance in the last year because of hundi.

The government does not want the ACC to go after massive corruption ahead of the national elections, said an ACC official.

"If the ACC works properly and independently, you will see that 90 percent of the corrupt people are from the ruling party. So the government wants the ACC to go slow and engage only in the routine work," he said, requesting anonymity.

At a programme held in February, Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque said a huge amount of money is being laundered from Bangladesh to different countries, including Canada's Begumpara and the UAE's Dubai, through under-and over-invoicing.

"The ACC requested the government to increase its power to fight against money laundering but to no avail. Perhaps a section inside the government does not want to stop money laundering," said another anonymous ACC official.

Eminent economist Muinul Islam said the government could not have taken any bold measures on money laundering. "In the last budget, they offered amnesty to the undisclosed asset or money laundered outside the country in exchange for 7 to 10 percent of the money as tax. However, no one took the offer. That is why it was dropped this year."

Bangladesh lost approximately $8.27 billion on average annually between 2009 and 2018 from mis-invoicing of the values of import-export goods by traders to evade taxes, and illegally move money across international borders, according to a report of Global Financial Integrity (GFI) published in December 2021.

"The budget speech is oblivious to the imperatives of transparency and accountability-based governance. This raises a concern that the new budget may turn out to be another opportunity for widening corruption and further facilitating illicit financial transfers," said TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman.