Finance Minister AMA Muhith told parliament yesterday that the government was taking measures to return the money smuggled out of the country during the 2001-2006 government headed by the BNP.

"We are in the process of signing a memorandum of understanding with various institutions to bring back money smuggled out during the four-party alliance government," the minister said, responding to a question of Mahmud-us-Samad Chowdhury, the MP from Sylhet-3.

He said Bangladesh has applied for the membership of Egmont Group, a coordinator of the hundreds of financial intelligence units looking into suspicious or unusual financial activity. It will be easier to get those smuggled money if the membership is obtained, Muhith added.

In reply to another question about the district budget, Muhith said, "The district budget will be presented along with the budget for next fiscal year (2010-2011). The government plans to present a budget for one district in each division with partial modification and improvement in the existing classification structure, and with few changes in the development project document, he added.

The minister also said there was no liquidity crisis in the scheduled banks. "Every year people collect huge amount of cash from the system during Eid-ul Fitr and Eid-ul Azha and it creates short-term liquidity crisis which is completely seasonal."

-The Independent