DEFYING the government order not to pressurise borrowers for repayment until September for coronavirus and flood, representatives of various micro-credit lenders are allegedly forcing the loanees to pay the installments on the loans they have taken, placing a heavy burden on them. The lenders are applying their usual loan recovery techniques without paying any heed to the government order. In fact, the coercive loan recovery strategies unveil the dark side of the lenders.
As reported in a national daily, police and local government representatives in the flood-affected northern region have confirmed that at least two suicide incidents occurred in July, clearly incited by micro-credit lenders. They also forced their creditors to sell their livestock or other valuables to recover loans throughout the coronavirus and flood since late June. Many of the northern shoal dwellers are still under water with lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands seriously impacted. They also lost their crops, fishes and livestock business because of the flood. Many of them borrowed loans. Now, instead of lifting them out of poverty, the borrowed loans break them, pushing them towards death.
It heartening to note that, a woman, who borrowed Tk 2,400 from a lender, had to leave her flooded village to seek refuge on an embankment. And she lived there for one and a half months when she could not pay her weekly installment of Tk 600. Recently, her lender, TMSS, took away the goat she owned. She, eventually, sold her goat at Tk 2,700 and paid back her dues.
The disadvantaged people are easily trapped in cycle of poverty. Those without land and no education or income face tougher obstacles. The credit only benefits that portion of the poor who are able to use loans productively.
In this backdrop, we hope that accountability of the government to people must be established at any cost by applying institutional mechanism. Majority of the government organs are not truly effective. The sincere political will of the government must be demonstrated in a way so that other sectors, including the local and international credit lenders, cannot dare to defy any government order in future.
