Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The authorities of BASIC Bank have initiated departmental action against eight officials of the bank who were allegedly involved in Tk 4,500 crore loan irregularities, official sources said.
The bank authorities earlier suspended them officials for their alleged link with the loan scam.
The suspended bank officials are Deputy Managing Director A Monayem Khan, General Managers Md Joynal Abedin Chowdhury, Khandaker Shamim Hasan and Mohammad Ali, Deputy General Managers Shipar Ahmed, SM Zahid Hasan, SM Waliullah and Neelutpal Sarkar. “A departmental action against the officials has been initiated as part of our plan to ensure vigorous actions against corrupt staff members of the bank,” a senior BASIC Bank official told The New Nation yesterday.
He added: The loan scams have severely dented image of the bank. So, the bank authorities are serious about restoring image of it by taking stern actions against the corrupt officials. The new management of the bank has also envisaged plan to improve financial health of the bank, he said. The official further said that the Anti-Corruption Commission is also investigating the loan scams of the bank and the BASIC Bank authorities have already provided all documents related to loan irregularities to filing graft cases against the suspended bank officials.
The ACC has also placed charge sheet against them, he noted.
Three audit teams have been carrying out a special inspection on Gulshan, Shantinagar and Dilkusha branches of the bank. The audit teams are scanning all the loan accounts above Tk one crore to assume the loan irregularities occurred in these branches.
“They will submit a report after scrutinizing such loan accounts to the bank’s top management,” he said.
When asked, the suspended officials had been posted at BASIC Bank head office. Regarding the present financial position of the bank, he said, it now is running under huge capital shortfall of Tk 1,676 crore (as on June 30 this year). The non-performing loans of the bank by this time hit a record level of Tk 4,560 crore. The bank’s 34 branches out of a total 68 have been counting losses.
He said, the new management of the bank has recently sought Tk 1,372 crore from the Finance Ministry to meet its capital shortfall. “And without fresh capital injection, it is difficult to run the lending activities of the bank,” he added.
Earlier, Bangladesh Bank (BB) investigations have detected massive loan irregularities involving around Tk 4,500 crore in its various branches of the bank between 2009 and 2013.
Most of the anomalies were detected in the bank’s Dilkusha, Shantinagar and Gulshan branches in Dhaka.
The suspended official Mohammad Ali and Shipar Ahmed had been in-charge of Shantinagar and Gulshan branches respectively.
SM Zahid Hasan earlier had been in-charge of credit at the bank’s Gulshan branch. Earlier on May 25, the central bank fired BASIC Bank Managing Director Kazi Faqurul Islam for presiding over a period of serious irregularities at the state-run scheduled bank.
On May 26, the central bank imposed a ban on disbursing loans from three scam-hit branches of BASIC Bank – Motijheel, Shantinagar, Dilkusha and Gulshan branches.
BB on May 29 this year sent a letter to the Bank and Financial Institutions Division of the Ministry of Finance recommending dissolution of BASIC Bank for widespread irregularities and corruption.
The government finally reconstituted the board of the BASIC Bank in July this year removing all its controversial board directors, including the former chairman Abdul Hye Bachchu.
