Commerce ministry asks Evaly to submit client list, info about stuck fund

The Ministry of Commerce has warranted detailed information from Evaly, a rogue e-commerce platform, about its stuck money along the payment gateways as well as a list of affected clients in a week.

The e-commerce cell of the commerce ministry sent a letter to Evaly Chairman Shamima Nasrin last week, Mohammad Syed Ali, deputy secretary of the commerce ministry confirmed the matter to Business Insider Bangladesh. 

Co-founder Shamima Nasrin took back the helm of the collapsed online store in September after securing a bail.

In a virtual press conference, she had promised authorities to reimburse all of its thousands of clients and merchants by resuming business.

According to a special audit report, Evaly now has products worth Tk 25 crore in its warehouses while around Tk 28 crore got stuck along the online payment gateways.

Evaly, formed a new board with Shamima Nasrin as the chairman and two of her family members, two representatives of the ministry of commerce and the e-commerce association of Bangladesh as members.  

The new board pledged to revive the business through a compliant business model – no loss-bearing discounts and no advance from customers. 

On Thursday, the commerce ministry asked Shamima Nasreen to submit her roadmap to restarting the company’s operations.

The Chief of Central Digital Commerce Cell, Hafizur Rahman, asked Shamima to submit a roadmap to this end.

Earlier, she had sought cooperation of the commerce ministry to secure bail for former Evaly Managing Director and her husband Mohammad Rassel. Additional secretary and head of the Central Digital Commerce Ministry Cell said they were unable to help her husband secure bail because it had been a judicial matter.

Shamima urged 45 lakh Evaly customers and 30,000 merchants to get onboard for regular buying and selling on the platform as soon as it resumes operations either through recovering the old server password or having a new one.