FARMERS BANK SCAM
The Anti-Corruption Commission on Tuesday arrested former Farmers Bank audit committee chairman Mahabubul Haque Chisty, his son Rashedul Haque Chisty and the Bank’s senior vice-president Zia Uddin Ahmed and first vice-president Muhammad Masudur Rahman Khan in connection with embezzlement of Tk 160 crore.
Dhaka metropolitan magistrate Golam Nabi later remanded the four in the commission custody for five days for interrogation in a case the commission filed with Gulshan police station on Tuesday for embezzlement of about Tk 160 crore.
Mahabubul’s wife Ruzi Chisty, the bank’s senior vice-president Delower Hossain and the four were named in the case for their alleged involvement in the embezzlement.
Commission’s public relations officer Pranab Kumar Bhatacharjee told reporters that a commission tem led deputy director M Samsul Alam was trying to arrest the rest two accused.
Earlier on April 3, the commission imposed a ban on travel of 17 people –Rashed’s wife Farhana Ahmed, daughter Rimi Chisty, the bank’s former managing director and chief executive officer AKM Shameem, deputy managing director Abdul Motaleb Patwari, senior executive vice-president Gazi Salauddin, executive vice-president Mohammad Jahangir Alam Majumdar, executive officers Lutful Haque, M Monirul Haque, Md Tafazzal Hossain, Mohammad Shamsul Hassan Bhuiyan, Mahbub Ahmed, and Md Zakir Hossain and the six named in the case.
Pranab said that the commission initiated the inquiry in July 2017. On April 2, scam-hit Farmers Bank former chairman Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, also ruling Awami League lawmaker, urged the speaker to issue a ruling asking the Bangladesh Bank governor not to give information to reporters about disbursement of loans by private commercial banks.
On a point of order in the parliament session, Muhiuddin claimed that reports published in the media on the basis of central bank information over the loan irregularities against him were baseless.
He said that appropriate measures should be taken so that the central bank could not reveal private commercial bank’s loan distribution information that, according him, helped newspapers to publish ‘imaginary reports’.
He noted that none could provide private bank’s information to media as per the Bangladesh Bank Order.
On November 27, 2017, Muhiuddin resigned as the Farmers Bank chairman as the central bank asked him to quit because of severe liquidity crisis caused by unbridled corruption and misappropriation of funds.
The new generation Farmers Bank, awarded licence in 2013 on political consideration, sought a Tk 1,100 crore fund in February 2018 in bailout to overcome the liquidity crisis due to aggressive banking, loan irregularities, gross mismanagement and undue interference by the previous board of directors.
The government has planned to inject Tk 715 crore into the scam-hit Farmers Bank despite criticism that the proposed bailout fund would set a bad precedence in the banking history.
In a recent statement, Transparency International Bangladesh vehemently opposed the government move for injecting fund into Farmers Bank. In the statement, TIB executive director Iftekharzzman demanded punishment of the corrupt officials of the banks and its directors.
It also demanded that share of the corrupt directors should be confiscated by the government and sold to arrange bailout fund.
Finance minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday said that he would not let Farmers Bank go bankrupt even though the operators of the bank were most wicked.
The present government wanted to recover the bank from its liquidity crisis, he said during a dividend handover ceremony by state-owned Investment Corporation of Bangladesh at the ministry.
He said that he wanted to prove advanced remarks by many lawmakers that failure of the government caused downfall of a bank in parliament wrong.
- Courtesy: New Age /Apr 11, 2018
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