NEWS reports said Agrani Bank’s auction plan of a property has faced legal snag as it appeared that the owner of the Moon Group, which stands defaulter of a loan of Tk 115 crore against the property is not its real owner; he has cheated the bank with fake documents to get the loan. In fact the Group owes a total of over Tk 300 crore as defaulted loan and some other properties are also scheduled for going on auction soon to recover the money. As it appears the owner of the Group was previously a board member of South Bengal Agricultural Bank and he was removed from his post for scandalous activities. The Agrani Bank still sanctioned him so much loan money in the recent past which now emerged as a new banking scandal raising new question on the safety of state-owned banks in the hand of their own management. .
News disclosure said Moon Group owner’s claim that he was the owner of the land he mortgaged to Agrani Bank in the city’s Kallyanpur area but the court found otherwise. The real owner was able to prove that Moon Group has created fake documents of ownership and used them for the loan. The reason why the documents were not properly verified when such a big amount was “advanced” as loan is stealing. It is easier to get big loans from banks because of big shares of looting among those who commit the crime together.
The report quoted a former member of the Board of Directors of Agrani Bank as saying that he had opposed the loan applications on several occasions and yet it was sanctioned for reasons not clear to him. Bangladesh Bank in its investigation also found that senior Agrani Bank officials were involved in the scam and recommended that they must be punished. But one of them was rather promoted to Deputy Managing Director and another got service extension on three occasions. Punishing whoever the money from the banks has stolen is not the solution. The regulatory bodies like Bangladesh Bank should be accountable. It seems that big bosses are regularly making speeches about honesty of others when they do not care to do their own duties honestly.
Some big ones in banking sector should be removed just for their incompetence.
