TERMING the loan defaulters “shameless”, Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Thursday said that there was “no change in attitude of the errant borrowers”. He further said, “I once asked a loan defaulter why he did not service the debt he owed to banks. The errant borrower replied that he would never service the debt since he had struggled hard to get the loan.” What an answer!
Earlier on September 13, the Finance Minister told parliament that the amount of defaulted loans, including non-performing and written-off loans, as of June, was Tk 131,666 crore with five state-owned banks, including scam-hit Sonali, BASIC and Janata, having Tk 56,283 crore or 43 per cent of the defaulted loan. The overall defaulted loan was about Tk 55,709 crore in 2010.
We cannot forget that most of the big financial scams occurred during Muhith’s tenure. Now he cannot shift his liability by any means. The series of loan scams in the state-owned banks, including embezzlement of Tk 1,200 crore by Bismillah Group from Janata Bank, Tk 3,500 crore loan scam by Hallmark Group in Sonali Bank and Tk 6,000 crore fictitious loans extended by the previous board of directors led by politically appointed chairman Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachchu of BASIC Bank was the main reason for the swelling of bad loans.
It is clear that big business houses are not repaying their loans by exercising their political influence. They are also using their links to prevent the investigation of their scams by the Anti-Corruption Commission. In December last year, Director General of the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management warned that the defaulted loan situation hit ‘alarming’ levels. In terms of percentage, it crossed double digit.
What is interesting that Muhith said he had already drafted recommendations for bad loan recovery but would not make those public now. Rather, he would provide those to his successors. We are surprised that Finance Minister has no guts to take a tough stance against the big loan defaulters and financial scammers.
A Finance Minister’s task is not writing recommendations for his successors. At present, his main job is to take back the money from the looters and save the banking sector from the verge of collapse.
