THE Daily New Nation reported on Friday that the Finance Minister Mr. Muhith implied the existence of a separate pay structure for the employees of state-owned commercial banks (SOBs) soon. After discussing the issue with Prime Minister, the Finance Ministry approved the pay structure. Mr Muhith said that they are set to raise the salary of SOB bankers. While declaring raises for the government owned bank bosses, the FM however did not deny the horrendous fact that there are cases of widespread forgery and theft in Bangladesh’s banking sector. The FM said the government has formulated many policies for inspection of financial institutions especially after the Hall-Mark scam.
However, the scenario at the ground does not echo the words of the Finance Minister. Yet again there had been a “double coincidence” of exactly the same kind of bank looting by cutting tunnels in a same government owned bank. Bangladesh Bank has failed to stop the repetition of the same incidence by the same bank again and again. Moreover, the exponential growth of unnecessary bank approvals during the Awami League government is not only unheard of but also a recipe for disaster in the banking sector. Then comes the saga of the straight forward bank robbery in the name of scams after scams. The story does not exclude the criminal inefficiency of Bangladesh Bank as a regulatory authority and other SOB managements, for they apparently do not know how to run banks or at least their actions say so.
So, one should ask the right question at this point -why another raise? What will the nation get out of these increments to hitherto good-for-nothing bank bosses? Is it the reward for better performance? If the current level of performance from SOBs’ is called efficiency then we don’t know what inefficiency is. Probably never in the history of Bangladesh has the banking sector faced scams of this extent and frequency that only the last couple of years witnessed.
But there is another way that the government is apparently not very interested in. Why not look forward for the gradual corporatization of SOBs’? Track records say that privatisation improves efficiency and reduces partisanship which is of course a reason of inefficiency itself. Furthermore, previous corporatizations enlivened and rejuvenated banks and brought goodwill and better brand name which in turn entailed bank with more trust from customers. We are not against proper remuneration packages adjusted for cost of living. But efficiency wage is supposed to be given to the employees who perform efficiently. This can be a way out for SOBs to improve their behaviour.
