Commerce ministry cannot avoid responsibility for e-commerce scams: Kamal

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday blamed the commerce ministry, the Bangladesh Bank, and the ICT Division for the recent e-commerce scams like Evaly, saying these organisations cannot avoid responsibility.

The commerce ministry has the highest responsibility as e-commerce firms secure their clearances from it, he told a virtual meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

He said the ministry would have to take the primary step to help customers, who were conned by e-commerce organisations, get refunds.

The government cannot avoid responsibility for such matters either, he said.

“We have to stop the ongoing fraudulent activities of these e-commerce platforms as soon as possible.”

He also said people are being cheated digitally now as they used to be subjected to fraud manually earlier.

Savings certificates interest rates may be raised

Kamal said the interest rates on savings certificates may be increased again, if necessary.

“Increasing or decreasing interest rates is an ongoing process. Rates will be increased sometimes and cut other times,” he said.

With the latest interest rate cuts, the marginalised people and also those making small investments in savings certificates would not be affected, he further said.

According to the new rules coming into effect on Tuesday, the higher the investment in savings certificates, the lower the return will be.

Investors will get a lower interest rate if the investment amount is higher than Tk 15 lakh, the Internal Resources Division of the finance ministry said in a circular.

Govt to procure 11 crore syringes

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved a proposal to purchase more than 11 crore syringes from JMI Syringes and Medical Devices to administer coronavirus vaccines.  

The meeting gave the nod to buy the syringes and also an adequate amount of auto-disable syringes in the future in order to inoculate 13.82 crore people.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, the finance minister said the Directorate General of Drug Administration would procure the syringes.

He said JMI is a well-reputed company and only syringes would be procured from them under the proposal.

The meeting approved in principle another proposal for procuring an additional 80,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil by the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation under a government-to-government deal on an emergency basis.