The countries, which advocate the most on ensuring transparency, provide the least information on corrupt people that Bangladesh requests for, said Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Chairman Mohammad Moinuddin Abdullah on Monday.
He also said, "It takes a lot of time to collect evidence against the money launderers, as the commission doesn't have the authority to directly communicate with foreign nations in this regard."
Besides, there are 27 types of money launderings as per different laws. But the commission has the jurisdiction to investigate only one type of such offence.
He said these at a view-exchange programme with journalists at the ACC headquarters - marking the commission's 19th founding anniversary.
Mr Abdullah noted that the agency follows certain protocol while investigating allegations of money laundering.
Initially, the ACC collects primary information on money launderers from the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) under the central bank.
After that the commission requests the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via Public Security Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs, to seek required information from foreign ministries of respective countries.
Without mentioning any specific country, the ACC chairman said after overcoming all these hurdles, in many cases, Bangladesh gets minimal information on money launderers from different countries.
The commission is tasked to investigate money laundering by the government officials only. "We receive maximum criticism for not investigating money laundering allegations, which are not even under our jurisdiction. There are six more agencies responsible for investigation of such crimes."
Meanwhile, responding to a question why the commission does not recruit its own lawyers, Mr Abdullah said experience of lawyers matters a lot in court proceedings, while the ACC can only employ junior lawyers at assistant director rank.
No matter what evidence the commission has, it is not viable to send junior lawyers to prosecute corruption cases against senior lawyers - employed by defendants.
Under such circumstances, the ACC prefers to depend on panel of senior lawyers to prosecute corruption cases, he added.
ACC Commissioner (Enquiry) Dr Md Mozammel Haque Khan, Commissioner (Investigation) Md Jahurul Haque, and Secretary Md Mahbub Hossain, among others, were also present in the programme.
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