Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The officials and the employees of the National Bank Ltd (NBL) have urged the central bank to immediately dissolve the present board of the bank with appointment of an administrator in order to protect interest of the depositors and service security of the employees.
They requested it to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr Atiur Rahman in a letter sent to him recently following detection of massive loan irregularities in bank’s six city branches by a central bank inspection team.
Terming the present board ‘illegal and corrupt,’ they said, the board had been formed violating the ‘Banking Company Act,
and the board members have already diverted a large amount from the bank’s exchequer to their own companies by name and secretly.
Referring to the inspection report of BB, a senior NBL official told The New Nation yesterday that the central bank vigilance team found loan irregularities of Tk 2000 crore in the bank branches.
“The loan was sanctioned without proper documents and scrutiny and the bank’s board and top management were found to have been involved in the scam,” he said.
The NBL official also said that the loans were sanctioned to several companies owned by the bank’s Chairman and his family members and some big business houses of the country violating rules to siphon off money.
The bank is now running by Sikder family as the board picked up five directors from the same family. As the directors came from the same family, they are dictating all the activities, including loan sanctioning, of the NBL ignoring decisions of its senior executives, he said.
“Even, they have sanctioned loans to defaulter companies and misappropriated fund opening fake companies putting the bank in a dire situation,” he noted.
Giving an example, he said, with approval of the board, the Simanto Square branch of the bank disbursed Tk132 crore loan to ‘Cambridge International,’ an English Medium School owned by Sikder family. But when the central bank inspection team visited the said spot of the school at city’s Rayerbazar, they did not find existence of it. Thus, it proved that the Sikder family swindled the fund in the name of a fake school
The central bank has also found a series of anomalies committed by the board of directors in maintaining single borrower exposures limit, loan rescheduling, loan classification, loan renewal and loan written off and expenditure under CSR activities.
The former Managing Director KM Shafiqur Rahman raised voice against such illegal activities of the board members. Instead, they later forced him out from the bank, he said.
“Our bank is now burdened with bad, default and classified loan and toxic assets. It has failed to come up with required provisioning against the bad loans while deposit against lending was going down jeopardizing financial health of the bank,” he said.
The issue is very critical. And, so, we have sought immediate intervention of BB to salvage the bank. BB earlier posted an observer in the bank, but this was not enough to ensure good governance of the bank. Without dissolution of the bank’s board and appointment of an administrator, the present crisis of the bank could not be solved, he opined.
When asked, BB spokesman and Executive Director M Mahfuzur Rahman said, the central bank is closely monitoring the activities of the bank following detection of huge loan irregularities in the bank’s six branches.
“We have already posted an observer for NBL to keep watching the activities of it. But we are not thinking to dissolve the board right now,” he added.
NBL has started operation as a private commercial bank in 1983 and now it has 175 branches across the country.
Zainul Haque Sikder is the Chairman of the bank. His wife Monowara Sikder, daughter Parveen Haque Sikder and two sons Rick Haque Sikder and Ron Haque Sikder are also the board members of NBL.
The officials and the employees of the National Bank Ltd (NBL) have urged the central bank to immediately dissolve the present board of the bank with appointment of an administrator in order to protect interest of the depositors and service security of the employees.
They requested it to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr Atiur Rahman in a letter sent to him recently following detection of massive loan irregularities in bank’s six city branches by a central bank inspection team.
Terming the present board ‘illegal and corrupt,’ they said, the board had been formed violating the ‘Banking Company Act,
and the board members have already diverted a large amount from the bank’s exchequer to their own companies by name and secretly.
Referring to the inspection report of BB, a senior NBL official told The New Nation yesterday that the central bank vigilance team found loan irregularities of Tk 2000 crore in the bank branches.
“The loan was sanctioned without proper documents and scrutiny and the bank’s board and top management were found to have been involved in the scam,” he said.
The NBL official also said that the loans were sanctioned to several companies owned by the bank’s Chairman and his family members and some big business houses of the country violating rules to siphon off money.
The bank is now running by Sikder family as the board picked up five directors from the same family. As the directors came from the same family, they are dictating all the activities, including loan sanctioning, of the NBL ignoring decisions of its senior executives, he said.
“Even, they have sanctioned loans to defaulter companies and misappropriated fund opening fake companies putting the bank in a dire situation,” he noted.
Giving an example, he said, with approval of the board, the Simanto Square branch of the bank disbursed Tk132 crore loan to ‘Cambridge International,’ an English Medium School owned by Sikder family. But when the central bank inspection team visited the said spot of the school at city’s Rayerbazar, they did not find existence of it. Thus, it proved that the Sikder family swindled the fund in the name of a fake school
The central bank has also found a series of anomalies committed by the board of directors in maintaining single borrower exposures limit, loan rescheduling, loan classification, loan renewal and loan written off and expenditure under CSR activities.
The former Managing Director KM Shafiqur Rahman raised voice against such illegal activities of the board members. Instead, they later forced him out from the bank, he said.
“Our bank is now burdened with bad, default and classified loan and toxic assets. It has failed to come up with required provisioning against the bad loans while deposit against lending was going down jeopardizing financial health of the bank,” he said.
The issue is very critical. And, so, we have sought immediate intervention of BB to salvage the bank. BB earlier posted an observer in the bank, but this was not enough to ensure good governance of the bank. Without dissolution of the bank’s board and appointment of an administrator, the present crisis of the bank could not be solved, he opined.
When asked, BB spokesman and Executive Director M Mahfuzur Rahman said, the central bank is closely monitoring the activities of the bank following detection of huge loan irregularities in the bank’s six branches.
“We have already posted an observer for NBL to keep watching the activities of it. But we are not thinking to dissolve the board right now,” he added.
NBL has started operation as a private commercial bank in 1983 and now it has 175 branches across the country.
Zainul Haque Sikder is the Chairman of the bank. His wife Monowara Sikder, daughter Parveen Haque Sikder and two sons Rick Haque Sikder and Ron Haque Sikder are also the board members of NBL.
