THE sorry state of the banking sector with over 27 percent default loans in eight state-run banks with a national average of 10 percent for all is really disturbing to suggest a total breakdown in bank management and loan operation of public sector banks. Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Saturday offered a public apology for managerial failure of the state-owned banks; which are now having a total of Tk 40,100 crore in default loans out of a total of Tk 74,194 crore in recent time. These banks are now mainly living on regular bail out from national exchequer but the question is how and why so much loans have become stuck up over the years and why the Finance Ministry remained unconcerned. In fact he encouraged bank looters by openly saying even big amounts were small money. He condemns the loan defaulters forgetting that business crisis may take place justifying failure to repay. There may be factors outside the control of the loanees for the bad days. But outright plundering was allowed for the incompetence of the Finance Ministry.
In our view mere apology of the Finance Minister for his failure is not enough, his incompetence should be recognised.
The fact is that his involvement with the ruling party politics left him utterly helpless to make compromise with big defaulters instead of tightening the screw on them. Particularly when Mohammad Abdur Razzak, the Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Finance came up with open accusation against the ACC in a workshop for ‘miserably failing’ to book the perpetrators of loan scams in BASIC Bank and such other banks it has no clear answer. He said the committee has sent specific evidences to the ACC in BASIC Bank’s loan scams involving Tk Tk 2,900 crore, which the Chairman personally sanctioned to 71 clients. These people are now mostly untraceable.
He wondered why the ACC representatives avoid attending meeting of the Standing Committee despite having sent invitations to talk on loan scams of the particular bank. But why the government should rely so much on the ACC. The corruption cases are not the best way to gain full deal with the defaulters. Many businesses could have been saved if bank officials were helpful to save the businesses. The corruption cases lead to other kinds of corruption. By putting the defaulting businessmen in jail they are incapacitated to be helpful to the banks. The corruption cases are also filed as a way of shirking responsibility of the high officials in the bank.
The basic problem is the lack of accountability. The power of corruption is the power of the government. The Finance Minister cannot see what a disaster the government has made for its failures in all sectors of the government.
