BNP member of parliament AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon has proposed temporarily scrapping Tk 500 and Tk 1,000 notes to bring cash held in homes into the banks.
He made the proposal on Sunday while taking part in the general discussion on the proposed 2026-27 budget in the National Parliament.
Highlighting the loss of public trust in the banking sector, Mahbub Uddin said many people were now keeping cash at home rather than in banks. Those who had once tried to launder money abroad, or were linked to the autocratic rule, had also left behind large amounts of cash, he said, so huge sums had remained outside the banks.
Proposing the scrapping of Tk 500 and Tk 1,000 notes, Mahbub Uddin Khokon said that if the government cancelled these notes and gave a two-month window to deposit them in banks, those whose tax files did not account for the money could legalise it by paying 25 percent tax. This would reduce the budget deficit, increase liquidity in the banking sector, strengthen banks and allow the money to be used in investment and production-oriented sectors, he said.
The BNP MP for Noakhali-1 also said he did not see the need for so many banks in Bangladesh. He favoured reducing the number of banks to ensure the safety of people’s deposits.
“There is no money. The banks have been looted. Why does Bangladesh need so many banks? It does not. If you become an MP you need a bank; if you become a leader you need a leasing company — this has to stop. The number of banks must be reduced. The people’s money has to be used to fill the banks’ shortfalls, so the safety of people’s deposits must be ensured,” Mahbub Uddin said.
Identifying money laundering as one of the country’s biggest problems, the lawyer said that although bringing back money laundered abroad had been talked about repeatedly since independence, not a single taka had in reality been brought back, because recovering such money is extremely difficult once it enters the international financial system.
“Money has a nature too. People keep money where they feel secure. We must build a financial system in which the country’s people are willing to invest at home rather than send money abroad. Making laws alone will not do; the whole system must change. People keep their money with confidence in Singapore, Dubai, Canada and Thailand, because that environment has been created there,” Mahbub Uddin said.
The BNP MP highlighted the law-and-order situation and unemployment as key challenges in implementing the new BNP government’s first budget. Improvement in law and order could not be expected while millions of young people remained unemployed, he said, calling for job creation and more work opportunities for the young.
Mahbub Uddin Khokon said that although this year’s budget was a deficit one, that was not unusual; many countries around the world have deficit budgets, and almost all budgets in Bangladesh’s past had been deficit ones.
He said the budget had been prepared in just three months, under the leadership of the prime minister and finance minister, amid a devastated economic situation, as part of efforts to rescue the country from a looted economy — which was why there was no major criticism of it.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report