bdnews24.com :
Khondker Iqbal has been appointed the managing director of state-owned BASIC Bank Limited caught in a mire of irregularities.
A bank media release said he took up the new assignment on Wednesday.
Before his current appointment, Iqbal was the managing director of the government-owned specialised institution, the Karmasangstan Bank.
BASIC Bank Deputy Managing Director Fazlus Sobhan had been acting as the MD since May 25 this year, when its MD Kazi Fakhrul Islam was removed following charges of financial inconsistencies.
Several days after Islam’s removal, the bank’s boards of director Chairman Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachhu resigned.
A central bank audit detected irregularities in the disbursement of loans amounting to Tk 45 billion by BASIC Bank over the past five years.
Most of the loans remained unpaid with some borrowers untraced.
The irregularities have landed the BASIC Bank in an acute crisis prompting several international banks to reject letters of credit (LC) opened by it.
At the end of June this year, BASIC Bank’s defaulted loans stood at Tk 45.91 billion, amounting to 40.77 percent of its disbursed loans.
Iqbal started his career in 1981 as a Class-I officer with state-owned Investment Corporation of Bangladesh.
