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Idle Funds at State Enterprises

Govt move won't cause liquidity crisis: Kamal

Star Business Report
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal yesterday dismissed any possibility of liquidity crisis in the banking sector despite a government move to use the idle funds of the state-owned companies to finance development activities.
"The finance ministry has no banks of its own. So, where will the money be kept? Not in suitcase. The money will definitely be kept in banks."
"Then where the thought [about the liquidity crisis] comes from?" Kamal said, while speaking to reporters after a meeting of the cabinet committee on economic affairs at the secretariat.
The cabinet on Monday approved a draft law that would allow the government to use the "idle funds" of state-owned corporations for development work.
There are 68 state-owned autonomous organisations, which hold Tk 212,100 crore in combined deposits in banks.
Of them, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation has the highest idle money of Tk 21,580 crore deposited in banks, followed by Petrobangla with Tk 18,204 crore, Dhaka Power Distribution Company Tk 13,454 crore, Chattogram Port Authority Tk 9,913 crore, and Rajuk Tk 4,030 crore.
The corporations have kept the money in banks as deposit or investment.
The government move evoked criticism from bankers, who fear the proposed law would hit the cash-starved banking sector hard.
But Kamal said nobody will face any trouble even if the money is transferred from one account to another.
The minister said the government has just formulated a broad guideline but details are yet to be finalised.
Kamal assured that no money will be taken from them and even no deposits will be withdrawn before maturity.
The minister said the state-run corporations were established with the public money but now the companies think that these money are their own property and sometimes they do not inform the government how and where they spend the money.
"So, the government thinks that there is a need for a coordinated approach to use the money. If it is used in a coordinated way, it will yield a good result. That's why the government wants to bring the money
to the public exchequer.
However, the companies would be allowed to hold enough money to meet operational costs and unforeseen expenditure but it would not be more than 25 percent of their operational costs. Besides, some funds will be kept for development projects, the minister said.
The minister also said it is not rational that the government would borrow money from the banking system at 5 percent to 6 percent while the state-run companies park funds at
3 percent rate. "When the corporations incur losses, the government gives them money to recover from the crisis. For example, the jute corporation faces loss every year and the government has been giving money to it over the years," he added.
On Monday, Syed Mahbubur Rahman, chairman of the Association of Bankers, a platform of the managing directors of private banks, said the ongoing liquidity crisis would exacerbate if the government transfers the money from banks to the national coffer.