Agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury said in the parliament on Sunday that she should have been more cautious in signing files, admitting that she had signed the file proposing tax cuts on tobacco export mistakenly.
Matia, standing on rule 300 of the rules of procedure, gave the statement clarifying her position on the issue.
'I did not sign the file consciously. It was an error and I signed it along with some other files. I would not consciously sign such a proposal, which I had mentioned in my budget speech, too,' she said.
'Then the file went to the National Board of Revenue as the ministry's answer,' she added.
Matia said it was for the first time that the NBR decided to reduce the duty on tobacco export by 10 per cent and sought opinion of the agriculture ministry on the move. 'After officials at different levels had signed it, the file came to me with the ministry secretary's approval and I signed it on April 28,' she added.
'It is not true that we had written to the finance ministry requesting for the duty cut,' she added.
Matia made the explanation in response to a news item published in a vernacular daily and requested the newspaper to be more cautious in publishing news in the future.
Source : New Age
