RAB proposes to join VAT collection drive

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) wants to conduct Value Added Tax (VAT) collection drive for the National Board of Revenue (NBR). The law enforcement agency also proposed to revise the current mobile court act in this connection.

NBR collects VAT under the present act and also takes action against the VAT dodgers. The VAT intelligence unit works to prevent VAT evasion. As per article 24 of the VAT Act, the law enforcing agencies can only provide cooperation, if sought for, to NBR officials in collection of tax.

RAB recently sent a proposal to the NBR and home ministry to revise the Mobile Court Act and include the law enforcement agency so that they could conduct drives against VAT dodgers. NBR officials however did not give any reaction to the proposal. Besides, the business community leaders termed it to be inappropriate. They said, tax collection is a specialised work and NBR has the experience to handle such work.

While speaking on the issue, NBR chairman Nojibur Rahman said, “We will collect VAT under the prevailing act and take the help of the law enforcement agencies if necessary.”

The written proposal signed by RAB director general (DG) Benazir Ahmed said drives under the mobile court act conducted by the RAB executive magistrates were being praised by the people for its success in dealing with various offences, including food adulteration, selling expired and fake medicine and cosmetics, phony physicians, unlicensed clinics and diagnostic centres, illegal blood banks, and illegal trade of wild animals.

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Bangladesh investment summit begins Sunday

The two-day Bangladesh investment and policy summit 2016 begins in Dhaka on Sunday to showcase private sector investment opportunities in the country's key sectors.


Prime minister Sheikh Hasina is exepcted to formally inaugurate the summit at hotel Radisson Blu Water Garden on Sunday morning.

Local and foreign Investors, experts of foreign direct investment and industrial and international trade and policymakers and business entrepreneurs and government officials will join the summit.


According to officials at the Board of Investment (BoI), the main objectives of the summit is to highlight the latest policy developments for private sector growth in Bangladesh to showcase private sector investment opportunities and demonstrate opportunities for potential value addition to those sectors for the country's sustained economic growth.

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Move to replace household piped gas with LPG

Against the backdrop of the country's fast declining gas reserve, the energy division has initiated a move to introduce liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) within the next two or three years by phasing out the existing piped natural gas for household consumption.

According to Energy Division officials, the gas reserve, which now stands at 14 trillion cubic feet (tcf), will start to decline from 2017 if no new discovery is made. "The natural gas will completely get exhausted by 2031 if no substantial reserve is discovered", said a top energy division official.

Under the circumstances, he said, LPG is considered as the most suitable alternative to natural gas for household purpose as 2.8 million household consumers are now using 330 mmcfd gas --13.06 per cent of the total gas production.

According to power and energy ministry documents, the country's total gas reserve (proven plus probable) is 27.12 trillion cubic feet (tcf). Of this, 13.032 tcf gas has been extracted until June 2015, with 14.088 tcf remaining.

The gas production marked a rise by 986 mmcfd to 2,730 mmcfd in 2015 from 1744 mmcfd in 2009, an average annual increase by 164.33 mmcfd in the last six years.

Energy ministry officials said the gas sector did not see any new discovery in the last 7-8 years although the state-owned Petrobangla made announcement on several occasions of new gas reserve. But when they went for drilling, no gas was found there as announced.
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"Border closure to cost EU 3b euros a year"

Adding border checks to Europe's passport-free area would cost 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) a year in lost business, the bloc's chief executive said on Wednesday, seeking to reinforce a message that impulsive measures to curb migrant flows would hurt the economy.
 With some 1.7 million workers crossing EU internal borders every day and with 57 million journeys made across those frontiers every year, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said every hour of waiting time at borders had a cost. "One after another, we close the borders and once they are all closed we will see that the economic cost is huge," Juncker told the European Parliament in Strasbourg. "If we close the borders, if the internal market begins to suffer ... then one day we will be wondering whether or not we really need a common currency if there is no single market, no free movement of workers any more," he said, warning of the threat to the euro. Juncker, whose EU executive is working on revising the bloc's asylum and migration policy, said he decided to stress the economic impact because of EU governments' "cavalier" attitude to the Schengen zone of passport-free travel.
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Use CSR funds to eradicate poverty: Atiur

Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman on Wednesday urged banks and corporate houses to come forward with corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds to eradicate poverty.
 He was speaking at the ‘Dissemination and Report Handover Ceremony of CSR Findings’ at the central bank. Management Resources Development Initiative (MRDI) conducted the study to find impact assessment on ‘CSR Fund Usage by Banks’. The report found 62 per cent people in the survey area in the three villages of Dakope upazilla of Khulna, the worst hit villages of cyclones Sidr and Aila, as ultra-poor. “According to wealth profile, 25 per cent are poor, 7.5 per cent are low income and only 5 per cent are middle income,” the report said. About wealth profile, Dr. Atiur Rahman said it was not acceptable at all seeing poverty situation in certain areas of the country when Bangladesh embarks on middle income journey. MRDI Executive Director Hasibur Rahman, Association of Bankers President Anis A Khan, Deputy Governor SK Sur Chowdhury also spoke at the event.
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Pakistan court acquits Musharraf of rebel leader’s killing

A Pakistani court Monday acquitted former military ruler Pervez Musharraf over the 2006 killing of a Baloch rebel leader, one of three legal cases he faced after returning from exile, lawyers said.

The decision Monday was the first significant ruling in the cases, which include the murder of former leader Benazir Bhutto in 2007 and treason, since Musharraf was indicted in 2015 for the killing of nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti.

A spokesman for Musharraf told AFP he was happy with the ruling, which “will restore the people’s confidence in the judiciary”.

The former ruler also hopes to be acquitted in the other cases, which the spokesman said Musharraf described as “false and politically motivated”.

Bugti was killed in a military operation in 2006, sparking deadly nationwide protests and inflaming a separatist insurgency in resource-rich but impoverished Balochistan province.

“The court has dismissed all the charges against former ruler Pervez Musharraf and all those named in the case,” Aftab Sherpao, a former interior minister also named in the case, told media in the southwestern city of Quetta.
The anti-terror court’s ruling was confirmed by lawyers on both sides.

“It’s an injustice and a joke,” Suhail Rajput, lawyer for the Bugti family, told media and vowed to appeal.
Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999. Facing impeachment following elections in 2008, he resigned as president and went into self-imposed exile in Dubai.

He returned to Pakistan in 2013 on an ill-fated mission to run in the general election, but was barred from taking part and has since faced a barrage of legal cases.
They include treason for imposing emergency rule in 2007, and the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a gun and suicide attack that same year.
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5 French military men killed in Alps avalanche

Five French Foreign Legionnaires were killed Monday in an avalanche as they were on a training exercise in the French Alps, police sources said.

Another six were injured near the resort of Valfrejus, with one in intensive care in hospital after suffering hypothermia.

They were among a group of 50 soldiers taking part in the skiing exercise.
Three helicopters were involved in the search.

The nationalities of the victims were not immediately known. The French Foreign Legion attracts recruits from around the world.
The accident comes after two teenagers on a school trip and a Ukrainian tourist were killed in an avalanche in the French Alps last Wednesday.
A French teacher who took the students onto a closed skiing piste in that incident has been charged with involuntary manslaughter.
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