Opinion of law department sought to return the money stuck in the gateway

A high-level government committee has sought the opinion of the law and justice department to return money to e-commerce customers from the gateway. After receiving the feedback, arrangements will be made to return the money, said AHM Safiquzzaman, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Coordinator of the Committee. He was speaking to reporters after the third meeting of a 15-member committee on e-commerce issues at the Commerce Ministry's conference room on Tuesday (November 9). Asked when the stuck money could be returned, Safiquzzaman said there is Tk 214 crore in the escrow service (gateway). We have already written to the Public Security Department and CID to return the money. A large portion of this money is stuck in litigation. So, CID has frozen the money. That's why the money is stuck. Otherwise, the money would have gone out. Since there is a case with this, we have worked with a group including CID and Bangladesh Bank about how to get the money back. Maybe in a day or two I will get a legal opinion for this. We will arrange to release the money as soon as we get legal opinion. Many have received service products, but the company will get the money. And consumers who have not received the product will be refunded. Referring to today's meeting as the 'final meeting' of the committee, the head of the digital commerce cell said that a report on the issues finalized in today's meeting would be submitted to the cabinet on Wednesday. "The focus of our report will be on the terms of reference (TOR) of our task force," he said. We have some progress. In particular, we are providing Unique Business ID (UBID). I am bringing e-commerce companies under UBID. Hardcopy has already been done. Now, what we need is the app. a2i is doing that. We will be able to bring it very soon.