Muhith critiques CPD, says its quality is terrible

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has questioned credibility of private research organisation Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).

"Its (CPD) quality is sliding by the day. It has turned terrible," he told reporters on Thursday.

"They (the CPD) can't see anything positive about the country," Muhith said before declining to continue.

He had earlier flayed the organisation for its reports.

The CPD recently contested the government's claims on Bangladesh's economic progress, saying the country would not be able to attain a middle-income-country status by 2021.

Muhith has repeatedly said Bangladesh can attain middle-income status by 2021 by cutting poverty with a consistent GDP growth of over 6 percent and improving on other indices.

Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, too, took a dig at the CPD on Tuesday.

"The CPD is making negative comments when the whole world is recognising that Bangladesh is making progress."

Ahmed on Thursday alleged that neither the CPD nor Transparency International Bangladesh ever said anything good about the country.

Transparency International on Wednesday published a report on world corruption and put Bangladesh as the 14th most corrupt country.

When asked about the report, Muhith said corruption came down once a country's economy flourished.

"Many said insufficient salaries led to corruption by government officials.

"We've raised their salaries by 62 percent over the last five years, something that had not been done in the previous 40 years... but sadly corruption didn't come down.

"We have to see how we can tackle corruption. It has become ingrained in one's DNA," he added.