Finance Adviser Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed on Monday said after he left Bangladesh Bank as governor, all his successors just worked as agents of the government, not as governors of the central bank.

“It was not possible during my time as I was in there (Bangladesh Bank). After that Bangladesh Bank used to run through the government directives,” he said.

The finance adviser made the statement while responding to a question after officially announcing the successful completion of the budget preparation for 72 institutions for the current year using the State-Owned Enterprises (SoE) and Autonomous Bodies (AB) Budget, Reporting and Evaluation Database (SABRE+) at his office in the Finance Division.

Dr. Salehuddin served as the 9th Governor of the Bangladesh Bank, from May 1, 2005 to April 30, 2009.

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Later, Dr. Atiur Rahman served as the 10th governor of Bangladesh Bank, from May 01, 2009, to March 15, 2016. Fazle Kabir, former Finance Secretary to the government of Bangladesh, joined as the 11th governor of Bangladesh Bank from March 20, 2016 to July 3, 2020 and Abdur Rouf Talukder, former senior finance secretary, joined as the 12th governor of Bangladesh Bank from 12 July 2022 to 09 August, 2024.

Current governor Dr. Ahsan H. Mansur, former executive director of Policy Research Institute (PRI), joined on August 14 last year.

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Salehuddin said that at present his ministry does not interfere in any issue of the central bank.

He claimed that after his governorship those who were the governors was not for the central bank. “Sorry to say, they were act as the agents of the government, that thing does not exist right now,” he added.