Professor Muhammad Yunus.
The Anti-Corruption Commission on Monday approved the charges against 14 people, including Nobel laureate and Grameen Telecom chairman Professor Muhammad Yunus, in a case filed on charges of misappropriating over Tk 25 crore from the company’s Workers Welfare Fund and money laundering.
The commission approved the charge sheet at a meeting held at its headquarters in the capital’s Segunbagicha, ACC secretary Md Mahbub Hossain said while briefing journalists.
The charge sheet will now be submitted before the court, he said.
Earlier, the commission deputy director, Gulshan Anowar Pradhan, submitted the charge sheet to the commission for approval after completing an investigation into the case.
The other accused are Grameen Telecom managing director Md Nazmul Islam, former managing director Md Ashraful Hasan, directors Parvin Mahmud, Naznin Sultana, Md Shahjahan, Nurjahan Begum, and SM Hazzatul Islam Latifi, lawyers Md Yusuf Ali and Zafrul Hasan Sharif, Grameen Telecom Sramik-Karmachari Union president Md Quamruzzaman, general secretary Firoz Mahmud, and representative Md Mainul Islam.
ACC also charged Jatiya Sramik Federation central committee office secretary Kamrul Hasan, who was not among the accused initially.
Earlier, on May 30, last year, ACC filed the case against Yunus and 12 others on charges of misappropriating over Tk 25.22 crore from the company’s Workers Welfare Fund.
The ACC launched the probe against Yunus and others in 2022 upon receiving a complaint from the Department of Inspection of Factories and Establishments over fund embezzlement.
According to the case statement, as per the decision of the 108th Board of Grameen Telecom held on May 9, 2022, in the presence of the chairman and managing director, an account was opened at the Gulshan branch of Dhaka Bank Ltd.
A settlement agreement was signed between the Grameen Telecom Employees Union and the company on April 27, 2022, for the distribution of dividends to the company’s employees.
Although the board meeting decision to open the account was held on May 9, the bank account was opened a day earlier.
The settlement agreement was held on April 27, 2022, but the agreement showed that the bank account was opened on May 8, 2022, which was impossible, said the case statement.
According to ACC, with such a ‘false’ settlement agreement and the decision of the 108th Board meeting of Grameen Telecom, Tk 437 crore was transferred from the telecom bank accounts of United Commercial Bank Ltd to Dhaka Bank on May 10, 2022. Later, as per the decision at the 109th board meeting held on June 22, 2022, an additional payment of Tk 1,63,91,389 was approved.
ACC said Tk 26, 22, 06,780 was transferred to the account of the employees in Dutch-Bangla Bank on three different dates, but only Tk one crore was paid as an advocate fee.
The remaining Tk 25, 22,01,780 was misappropriated before the dividends were disbursed among the employees, ACC claimed to have found in its investigation.
The money was embezzled by CBA leaders, lawyers, and others in connivance with Yunus and other board members, the ACC said.
Yunus denied the allegations when the ACC in October grilled him for over an hour at its headquarters in the case.
The 83-year-old Yunus, known internationally as the ‘banker to the poor’, is credited with establishing a pioneering system of micro-finance loans that lifted millions out of poverty.
Yunus and his Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering work in 2006.
Yunus, who is facing more than 170 cases, was sentenced on January 1, 2024 to six months in jail by the Dhaka Labour Court 3 in a case filed by DIFE for violating labour law at Grameen Telecom.
Yunus filed an appeal on Sunday with the Labour Appellate Tribunal, challenging the verdict.
Yunus was removed from the post of Grameen Bank managing director in 2011 by the Bangladesh Bank and at the request of the government, an order that the economist contested unsuccessfully.
New Age