Bangladesh has opposed an IMF proposal to monitor the flows of non-concessional loans by low income countries (LICs).

The International Monetary Fund wants to monitor the credit flows under a fresh proposal on debt monitoring policy.

“We opposed the proposal seriously,” Finance Minister AMA Muhith told reporters, after a meeting with visiting IMF’s South Asia Executive Director Rakesh Mohan at the Ministry of Finance in Dhaka yesterday. “This is not the jurisdiction of IMF and I do not want it by IMF.” 

He said the World Bank now monitoring the non-concessional loans and should continue. He, however, said there would be no serious damage if the IMF looks after the non-concessional loan.

Replying to question, the minister said the country’s repayment performance of foreign credit is comparatively better than other countries and it has become a culture of Bangladesh.

The finance ministry worked prudently for last 42 years in repayment of the foreign loan, including the works performed by the hardcore loan committee set up by me 25 years ago.   

Rakesh praised the country’s macroeconomic situation and said it showed creditable progress with holding stable macroeconomic status. He said the foreign exchange reserve and positive balance of payment helped the country maintain a nice economic situation. 

Finance division will soon seek opinion from the newly formed pay and service commission to execute the process for the implementation of the new pay scales for the employees of Bangladesh Bank and four other state-owned commercial banks.

We will sit with the chairman of the pay and service commission Mohammad Farashuddin to avoid the legal complexity and any sort of clash between the state bank pay-scale and other announced pay scales, finance secretary Fazle Kabir told Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

He also said after receiving opinion from the commission the finance division would soon hand over the matter to the authority concern for further steps.

BB and state banks pay-scale have already secured the clearance from the law and parliamentary affair ministry in the first week of March.

The separate pay scale for BB employees could be implemented under the existing legal framework and no amendment of law would be required, said the sources in the finance division.

On 24 November, the government constituted the eighth pay and service commission to formulate a new pay structure for public servants.

Mohammad Farashuddin, former Bangladesh Bank governor, led the 17-member commission. The committee comprised of three full-time members, 12 part-timers and a member secretary.

Finance minister AMA Muhith last week directed the Bank and Finance Institutions Division (BFID) to speed up execution process of new scales of BB and state banks.

During last month, the law ministry had informed the implementation department of finance division that the separate pay-scale for Bangladesh Bank employees could be executed under the existing legal framework and amendment would not be required.

Bangladesh Bank and the four state-owned banks have a total of 61,000 staffs.  Bangladesh Bank has 4,958 staffs while Sonali Bank 23,363, Janata Bank 15,146, Agrani Bank 13,558 and Rupali Bank 4,293. The separate pay scales for the banks got stuck due to legal complexities.    

The pay scale for any government office is implemented under the Services (Reorganisation and Conditions) Act, 1975.

The four state-owned banks can introduce separate pay structures through their board approvals as they have been corporatised.

But Bangladesh Bank cannot do that, and there was possibility to amend the law to introduce separate pay structure for its staff.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina signed the recommendations of the secretaries’ committee on separate pay scale on November 12 last year.

Under the new 11-grade pay scale which will replace the existing 20-grade pay structure, the basic salary for those in the lowest grade will be Tk6,000 and for the highest grade will be Tk55,000.