Things must really be bad if the Commerce Minister, no less, can fail to get his online cow delivered. This is a serious situation indeed because if the Minister’s cow can go missing after purchase, us ordinary mortals, not necessarily cows, should not expect much.
He had bought a cow for Taka 1 lakh but the money and the animal both sank into the online “black hole”. As Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi has said that if he can get into this mess… Since it was an Eid sacrificial or Qurbani cow, both the Minister and the cow were also deprived of the sowab they were entitled to as part of the holy act. The online platform which sold the cow but never delivered is therefore guilty of not just crime but sin too. Our deepest sympathies to all concerned including if we are permitted, the cow too. Hopefully, in the next Eid two animals can be offered to make up for the lost piety.
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Pay full, get half ?
The Minister has also made a significant statement on payback of the money stolen by “Jubok” and “Destiny”, the most well-known MLMs in town. He has said that given the assets that the Government has been able to access of these two MLM frauds, the ripped off clients may expect about 50% of their dues, someday. In fact this is incredibly good news because people had given up hope on getting any of their stolen funds back, for any just the original deposit. And there are so many of these institutions that have ripped off people so badly.
Theft as part of the finance sector activities is now an established pattern. The 90s saw the stock market rips off and several people were even charged for market manipulation but of course as expected, all were let off. It’s from that time onwards that the savings and investments stealing has been hugely boosted by thieves who seem to populate everywhere.
The share market scams was followed by the MLM fraud wave and then came the banks and leasing companies. Meanwhile, fearing people might get edgy with old sectors; the market was flooded by e-commerce companies particularly after corona struck. They have once again proven that Bangladeshis are the most gullible fools of them all, the authorities are not efficient enough to do their job of regulating and certainly not able to prevent theft. Or some would say, many are not willing to protect and regulate.
It may not have struck the Government that the only safe place is the Sanchay patras zone but with their declaration of reduced savings rate, the space is going to be further squeezed. Since savings money is not kept idle in today’s economy , they will seek new areas of investment and they may be even more risky so the scenario hardly looks good for criminals.
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So where to then? There are no ready answers as of today. Perhaps the Minister may try to negotiate with the online company that sold him the cow that was never delivered to deliver a goat instead or a few chicken or even eggs- just anything- instead of what they paid for. It’s sort of like paying half of their dues. Or however much they can. A new era has arrived.