Angry staff stage countrywide sit-ins wearing black badges
Grameen Bank employees yesterday wore black badges and staged sit-ins in their offices across the country to protest the impending report on the bank by a government-sponsored commission.
The employees vowed not to let the government split up their bank and turn it into a public one “as long as they are alive”.
During demonstrations at the Grameen Bank headquarters in Mirpur, Shamsul Alam, president of the bank’s employees association, said they do not want anybody to “loot” the bank in the name of cooperation.
“The bank’s management, officials and employees have been solving the problems of the bank, if any, for the last three decades. They can do the same now and in the future.”
He said the bank was performing efficiently with the current structure and that there is no need to split it into at least 19 units.
The association also urged the government to annul the final report of the commission, which is due anytime now. The Grameen Bank Commission’s tenure ended on Saturday.
The protest comes after it came to light that the three-member commission would retain almost all the recommendations that it made in the interim report, which came out in February this year to widespread criticism.
Foremost among the recommendations made by the commission involves restructuring the microcredit organisation, which, the board, employees and supporters of Grameen Bank say, would give the government a controlling stake in the bank.
The interim report also called for fixing a minimum educational qualification for the nine elected board members of the bank.
The commission even suggested the government suspend the licence of Grameenphone, which is owned by Norwegian telecommunication company Telenor and Bangladesh’s Grameen Telecom.
Moreover, the topics the commission had prepared for discussion at a workshop also caused uproar. The workshop, however, never took place.
The government set up the commission last year to review the operation of Grameen Bank and the associated organisations founded by Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus, and to make recommendations about their future structures.
Mohammad Shahjahan, acting managing director of Grameen Bank, was present during the sit-in.
Grameen Bank has 26,000 employees at its 2,555 branches, 266 area offices, 40 zonal audit offices, 40 zonal offices and headquarters, managing a client base of 8.4 million.
Source: The Daily Star
