The central bank has unearthed huge irregularities in Basic Bank in sanctioning loan to five ‘fictitious’ business firms and there is hardly any scope of its recovery.
A special inspection team of Bangladesh Bank (BB) recently found that the bank’s Gulshan branch approved Tk338 crore to these companies, breaking rules and regulations of the central bank.
The bank sanctioned Tk 75 crore loan to SFG Shipping Lines, Tk 50 crore to Shipan Shipping Lines and Tk 45 crore to SM Shuhi Shipping Lines and Tk 168 crore was sanctioned to two other companies. In fact, these firms are not in existence and the entire loan exercise was based on fictitious business documents.
According to BB’s inspection report, the loan was sanctioned without assessing credit worthiness, credit standing and previous transaction records of the business firms.
“The authorities of Basic bank sanctioned the loan in violation of all banking norms and the high officials of the bank were directly involved in the process,” said the report.
It said: “The branch manager recommended the loan proposal to the head office for approval although the firms were not eligible to avail of such a big loans.”The loans were also sanctioned without collateral and clearance of the BB’s credit information bureau,” it said.
The BB inspection team held the branch manager and its managing director responsible for the irregularity and asked the management of the bank to take punitive action against them.
Officials involved in the BB’s investigation said, as they did not found existence of the companies, the entire fund went to swindlers hand. There is no chance to recover the fund, they added.
Sources said, the fund was disbursed only to swindle the bank’s money and the loan was given to one Jewel by opening papers in the name of fake companies. They also said that the bank’s Gulshan branch approved the loan getting instruction from the high officials of the bank’s principal branch.
The chairman and managing director of Basic Bank could not be reached for comments despite several attempts to their cell phones.
Earlier, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has launched an investigation into the bank’s alleged loan scandal amounting to Tk 3,500 crore.
The loan scam of BASIC Bank, a specialised public bank, came to light within few months of the sensational loan scam at Sonali Bank in which Hall-Mark Group and five other companies embezzled Tk 3,600 crore from the bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel Branch providing forged documents.
According to media reports, BASIC Bank disbursed Tk 6,000 crore in the form of loans to different companies out of which Tk 3,500 crore was given in breach of banking rules and regulations.
The reports also said that Sheikh Abdul Hye Bacchu and Kazi Faqurul Islam, Chairman and Managing Director respectively of the bank and some other directors sanctioned the loans misusing power and violating banking norms.
