Govt now will rewrite companies act to appoint administrator for Destiny

The commerce ministry will now move to amend the Bangladesh Companies Act 1994 to pave the way for appointing an administrator for the controversial Destiny Group, said a senior official of the ministry yesterday.
The ministry will hold an inter-ministerial meeting today to amend the act, said the official.
As per earlier announcement, the ministry was supposed to appoint an administrator for the group by the end of the current week, as three top officials of the company were sent to jail for their alleged fraudulent activities.
The current provisions of the act do not allow appointing an administrator so fast, said a joint secretary of the ministry, requesting not to be named.
“Appointment of an administrator will take time as we have to amend the Bangladesh Companies Act 1994.”
Earlier, on Thursday, Commerce Secretary Ghulam Hussain said the decision of appointing an administrator was taken when an investigation team found that 39 companies of Destiny Group transacted Tk 3,798.94 crore through anomalies.
The probe team also found that Tk 1,454.41 crore was embezzled through different companies of the Group and Tk 2,344.53 crore was transacted illegally.
“The prime minister has already given consent to appointing the administrator. If necessary we will amend the companies act so that we can appoint one or more than one administrators to run the Destiny Group,” Hussain said at the media briefing on Thursday.