FE Report

The government has taken initiatives to reconstitute the boards of directors of fundamentally weak listed companies to develop corporate governance in those companies, Finance Minister AMA Muhith told the Parliament Wednesday.

In reply to a question of Noor Afroz Ali, the minister said the listed companies have been asked to prepare their financial reports quarterly in addition to the half yearly and yearly ones.

He said the government has also taken steps to formulate Financial Reporting Act to scrutinise financial reports prepared by issuer companies or auditors.

"Corporate Guideline has already been declared to appoint or elect directors in the issuer companies," Mr Muhith said.

The minister told the House that 211 brokerage houses are operating in Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) and 111 in Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) and the government has earned about Tk 300 million (30 crore) in 2008-09 and Tk 190 million in 2007-08 from them.

In reply to a question of AHM Hamidur Rahman, Mr Muhith said the government has allocated Tk 7.0 billion in the current fiscal year to face the impacts of climate change.

The government has earned Tk 77.0 billion in revenues in the first two months of the current fiscal, he said.

Revenues worth more than Tk 108 billion were collected from Chittagong Customs House during the January-August period, he said adding that the government has taken initiatives to increase the cash-flow.

The finance minister said about 2.3 million people have tax identification numbers (TIN) in the country and of them, 0.7 million pay taxes.

He added: "Bangladesh Bank does not have any record of how much siphoned-off money has been brought back from abroad."