An average of $16 billion was illicitly siphoned off from Bangladesh every year during the regime of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina, a White Paper on the state of the economy during her rule said on Sunday.

The committee submitted its report to Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus at his Tejgaon office, saying they were horrified by the level of corruption, plunder, and statistical manipulation conducted by Hasina’s regime.

Debapriya Bhattacharya, a leading economist and distinguished fellow at the Dhaka-based think tank Centre for Policy Dialogue, chaired the committee and led his team during the handover ceremony.

Chief Adviser Professor Yunus thanked the committee for doing a landmark, saying it should be published once it is finalised and be taught in textbooks in national college and university curricula.

‘This is a historic document. It will show us the economy we inherited after the July-August mass uprising. The nation will benefit from this document,’ said the Chief Adviser in his short speech before receiving the White Paper.

‘Our blood curdles to know how they plundered the economy. The sad part is they looted the economy openly. And most of us could not summon courage to confront it,’ he said.

Even the multilateral agencies that monitor Bangladesh’s economy were also largely silent when this plunder took place, he said.

Head of the committee, Debapriya Bhattacharya, said they worked independently without any interference from the government.

‘The problem is deeper than we thought,’ he said, adding that the 30-chapter, 400-page White Paper would reveal how crony capitalism gave rise to the oligarchs who controlled policy formation.

Committee member Mustafizur Rahman said that they examined seven of the 29 large projects, each with an expenditure of over Tk 10,000 crore.

The total cost for all 29 projects amounted to $87 billion (Tk 7,80,000 crore). The initial estimated cost of the seven projects was Tk 1,14,000 crore, but this was later revised to Tk 1,95,000 crore by adding various components, inflating land prices, and manipulating purchases.

This resulted in a nearly 70 per cent increase in project costs without a proper cost-benefit analysis, he explained.

Mustafiz also recommended initiating special prosecution to hold those involved in money laundering accountable.

Committee member AK Enamul Haque revealed that over the past 15 years, more than Tk 700,000 crore was spent on the Annual Development Programme (ADP), with 40 per cent of the funds being misappropriated by bureaucrats.

Committee member Mohammad Abu Eusuf disclosed that tax exemptions during the previous regime accounted for 6 per cent of the country’s total GDP.

He suggested that reducing this by half could double the education budget and triple the health budget.

M Tamim, another committee member, pointed out that $30 billion was invested in power generation, and if kickbacks were assumed at 10 per cent, the total would amount to at least $3 billion.

Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed, Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur, Principal Secretary Sirajuddin Sathi, and Senior Secretary Lamiya Morshed also attended the session.

The report, titled ‘Dissection of a Development Narrative,, is expected to be made available to the public soon.