Bangladeshi expatriates living in various countries of the world are being misled by the continuous propaganda on social media made about liquidity crisis in country’s economy and banking sector. Due to this propaganda, they are in fear of losing money they have in the banks of the country. As a consequence, they’re not sending money to the country without essential purpose like payment of loan installment and bearing family expenses. Even, some expatriates haven’t been sending remittance for three to four months and asked the family members to execute the expenses by withdrawing money deposited in the local banks.
All the above information has been revealed while talking to the expatriates living in Middle East, Malaysia and Italy. The authorities concerned said the expatriates having insignificant educational background are getting confused through these videos posted on social networking sites. Bangladesh used to receive largest amount of remittance from Saudi Arabia. But, for this propaganda, this remittance saw a new record in amount-drop.
The same situation prevails among the expatriates of United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar along with those who’re in Malaysia and Italy.
Expatriate Mizanur Rahman who are engaged in business at Sharjah, said, “Seeing faceboook and youtube posts about country’s banking sector, I’ve lost interest in sending money to the country. If the bank gets bankrupted, I’ll just get only 1 lakh from my deposited money of 10 to 20 lakh. Even, we get higher returns if we keep money in mobile banking than keeping it in banks.”
Another Expatriate Liaqat Ali, living in Jeddah of Saudi Arabia said, “After being influenced by the ‘news’ that Bangladesh might face fate like Sri Lanka, we started to keep money in our hands. We’ll take the amount with us when we’d return to the country, but can’t take the risk of losing it.”
According to the report of Manpower Employment and Training Bureau, Bangladesh used to get largest amount of remittance from Saudi Arabia. However, the US has become the topmost country to Bangladesh in case of receiving remittance. From July to September quarter, foreign currency worth of almost Tk 99 crore 98 lakh came from the US which was Tk 7 lakh more than that of Saudi Arabia. This happened for the first time in the history of Bangladesh.
The authorities concerned said the expatriates living in the US send all their money in legal ways. They didn’t shrink the amount what they used to send earlier. However, the expatriates living in Saudi Arabia started reducing their portion of money sent to the country. If the situation persists, the amount of remittance coming from the Middle-east would be reduced more.
According to the sources, the labor-force goes to countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Malaysia and Singapore are mostly less-educated, non-skilled or little-skilled. Hence, the fear about banking sector of the country is mostly visible among them. The banks or exchange houses usually remain closed on the holidays of these labors. So, it’s very hard for them to find a break in the working days to send money through formal channels. Enticing them by offering higher returns than banks, the hundi traders collect money from them. Then, they send this money to the country within short time through Bangladeshi agents. At present, the hundi traders are also involved in misuse of mobile banking or MFS.
@The report was published on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on November 28, 2022 and rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque
