FINANCE Minister AMA Muhith has said state-owned banks specially Sonali Bank and BASIC Bank have sustained serious irregularities in the past several years and they would take a long time to recover from the losses inflicted by reckless sanctioning of loan to dishonest people. He made no secret that big robberies had taken place in Sonali Bank and BASIC Bank in the hands of high officials and powerful people but why he failed to protect them, as a very powerful Minister remains unanswered. Now any confessional statement is not enough. These banks are now partially surviving under budgetary recapitalization programme.
The Finance Minister’s statement is not anything new including his earlier claim that the swindled amount of Taka 4000 crore from Sonali Bank was not a big amount. We don’t know why he down played the robberies although it has seriously compromised his credibility otherwise as an honest man at a time when he was expected to take a bold stand to save the state-owned banks. His failure is costing the exchequer through annual bail out plans; which included Tk 5000 crore under the current fiscal year.
We know money from Sonali Bank was removed from a single city branch in which an Adviser to the Prime Minister reportedly lent his help. Muhith had to swallow the assault on the bank when Hallmark was blamed and its owners were put under bar. But the Directors of the bank who approved the fake loans were left untouched and the money remained untraced even today. Similarly BASIC Bank saw the removal of Tk 5,000 crore but its chairman is still enjoying impunity despite approving fictitious loans.
What appears quite surprising is how and why BASIC Bank Chairman is escaping arrest and the Finance Minister, who earlier claimed that he has evidence to file case against him, is swallowing the escape. The fact is that Finance Minister AMA Muhith has failed to effectively run the banking sector and also the Finance Ministry itself on pressure of vested interest groups as is evident from the doubling of pay scale of public servants.
The Finance Ministry is treated as Super Ministry, which gives allocation to government ministries and control funds in various ways. But the way corruption and misuse of public money has spread in every aspect of life by government ministers, lawmakers and other partymen, the safety of money in the exchequer is also in many ways at stake. The Finance Minister accepts the truth of plundering but shows no power of integrity to take any step against the plunderers, that is most disappointing.
