Dhaka, Sep 6 Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Thursday baited the senior Awami League MPs who the day before had castigated him over his comments about Hallmark loan scam and suggested that the minister had better talk less.
"I have been suggested to talk less. So, I am going to finish soon," said Muhith as he began his speech at the launching ceremony of 'BD Venture Ltd," a new company, at Ruposhi Bangla Hotel.
The minister has been under fire lately after the World Bank pulled out of the Padma bridge project and after it emerged that Sonali Bank officials violated rules in disbursing over Tk 36 billion loans to six institutions.
Awami League Presidium member Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim had said on Wednesday in Parliament that the Finance Minister's attempts to shrug off the scale of the scam had "shocked the public".
Muhith had said on Sep 4 that given Bangladesh's Tk 400-billion portfolio of commercial bank loans, the Hallmark sum was tiny and that it would in no way affect the entire banking system. He also commented that there was no need for such hullabaloo over the Hallmark matter since Tk 40 billion was not a big deal for the government.
"What kind of a statement is that?" Sheikh Selim had asked. "Tk 40 billion may not be a large sum to him, but it is big deal for the people of Bangladesh."
"I realise that he has become old," said Selim of the 79-year Finance Minister. "I request that he does not make such statements. The less he speaks the better."
After the programme was over, the minister also refused to speak to journalists. He also declined comment when journalists went to his office to know about the meeting he had earlier in the day on the stock exchange.
But journalists finally managed to convince him for once after he came out of the meeting with the Commerce Secretary on the report on irregularities by Destiny -2000 Ltd.
"They have been given a two-month extension they had asked for submitting the report," he said.
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