Staff Correspondent
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) will work with foreign countries to detect and recover the money siphoned off and assets made abroad illegally.
“We are determined to detect the illegal money stored abroad and assets made outside the country…We will work with foreign countries and make necessary arrangements both bilaterally and multilaterally to detect and recover those,” a high official of the ACC told The Daily Star yesterday.
Meanwhile, the British High Commission in Dhaka in a statement sent to The Daily Star yesterday said the UK government would continue its support to the ACC to recover the ‘stolen assets’.
Responding to The Daily Star report on former minister and top raking BNP leader Khandeker Mosharraf Hossain’s huge assets in UK, a spokesman of the high commission said in the statement, “The Anti-Corruption Commission has a vital long-term mission. We encourage this government to enable an independent ACC to carry out its responsibilities, and we will continue to support the ACC’s work.”
He said, “We live in a globalised world in which financial crimes spread across borders. We take our responsibilities, including on helping to recover stolen assets, seriously.”
The spokesman also said that across the world, UK supports the fight against corruption and financial crime. Transparency is a cornerstone of sustainable democracy and is important if a country is to prosper.
Asked about Mosharraf’s assets in UK, Col Hanif Iqbal, ACC director general (admin), said, “I have no comment.”
He however said, “Whoever laundered money, the commission will go into the matter with bilateral or multilateral help of foreign countries if any such cases are detected.
“We (ACC) will not only take help from other countries but also help them in this regard, if they require,” Hanif said. “We will also exchange information with foreign countries to fight corruption.”
The ACC will work under the UN Convention against Corruption to help find information regarding wealth amassed through illegal means and corruption, and restrain use of that money by identifying the corrupt persons, he said.
Courtesy: thedailystar.net
