REPORTS in a national daily on Wednesday said depositors in People’s Leasing and Financial Services Limited (PLFS) are in serious trouble as none of them has got back his/her money even after one and a half years of the government’s move to liquidate the entity. Directors have laundered much of the deposit and some have fled the country. Since the liquidation move of the financial body was taken, 12 depositors have already died from various complexities without proper treatment while many retired person who had deposited their entire saving lure by high interest are now on the brink.
What is common is that most depositors are failing to run normal family life in want of cash, pay utility bills and other liabilities. Personal assistants of many old age people have already left in absence of regularly payment of salary. Most PLFSL depositors out of a total of 1200 are failing to ensure admission of their kids to schools or paying fees at higher educational institutions. Even many welfare trusts which had saved in high interest saving have to stop functioning or scaled back activities.
We know not only PLFSL, at least over a dozen non-bank financial institutions are facing insolvency because most of their funds were mismanaged and laundered by their directors and their relatives who borrowed against fake businesses in collusion with the board members. One single person P K Halder has laundered over Tk 3.600 crore from PLFSL and few others. Similarly BSCIC Bank, Sonali Bank and such other big banks were stolen by powerful people having strong backing from the powerful quarters of the government.
Report said the authorities were able so far to recover Tk 20 crore against Tk 1500 crore that Halder has alone grabbed. The question is how the big money could be recovered and is it at all possible to recover and compensate the people who lost their savings. We must say none but the government is responsible for ruining banks and financial institutions. By amending the banking company law, banks and financial institutions have been made family business with four directors from a family. Corrupt Ministers and MPs and other party members of a highly corrupt government are owners of most such banks and non-bank organizations and so the stealing continued. We don’t know how the people who lost fund can be saved.
