WHEN there are huge frustrations among the political circle, civil society members and the ordinary masses over ongoing banking irregularities, at that time the High Court has halted the loan rescheduling facilities for defaulters till June 23, earlier offered by the central bank, the Bangladesh Bank. The HC on Tuesday also observed that another Tk 100,000 crore may be laundered from the country if the big loan defaulters are given further opportunity to get bank loans in line with BB’s May 16 circular. The central bank on May 16 issued an unprecedented circular provisioning a facility of rescheduling default loans with a repayment period of up to 10 years.
The BB on the one hand is patronising the big loan defaulters by giving them various facilities and on the other hand it is harassing small loan defaulters by filing cases related to loans and bank cheques. The court also observed that BB is punishing the good and favouring the bad. According to BB data, the total defaulted loans in the banking sector stood at Tk 93,370 crore at the end of last year up by 25.66 percent year-on-year. The HC rightly observed that the central bank has given the big loan defaulters opportunities to get further loans by rescheduling their existing ones at 9 percent interest while compelling genuine businesspeople have to pay 14 to 15 percent interest.
On May 16, the same HC Bench ordered the BB to submit by June 23 a list of names and addresses of borrowers, who defaulted on loans of over Tk 1 crore each. It also asked the BB governor to submit a report by the same date with details on the money laundered to different countries and the steps taken to recover it. The court said it would take necessary action against the BB if it fails to submit the list and the report to it.
The role of central bank is very much shameful as it’s sharply sliding from the good practice resulting in suffering to law abiders. Awarding the loan defaulters in spite of taking punitive action is nothing but a syndicated corruption to siphoned money from the country. Only punishing the small defaulters by the BB has proven that the governance system in the central bank has malfunctioned totally.
