Faruque Ahmed
Robbery took place at yet another Sonali Bank (SB) branch last week. It occurred at the Adamdighi branch in Bogra district just after a similar robbery at the same bank’s Kishoregonj branch last month.
In both cases burglars cut tunnels under the ground that hit direct to the vault in the banks to take the money away. They swindled Tk 32 lacs of the bank last week cutting the tunnel from a nearby furniture shop and it couldn’t gone unnoticed suggesting the involvement of the shop owner.
Similarly burglars used a tunnel from a nearby house and took away Tk 16 crore from Kishoregonj branch of the bank. Though the law enforcers were able to arrest some culprits in the first case and recovered the money, the recovery of the money in the latest incident is yet unreported.
Money unsafe with SB
Meanwhile, hackers have also taken away over taka two crore of Sonali Bank breaking the code number showing the utter lack of safety of money and absence of adequate protective surveillance to run the bank all over.
The government has set up a committee last week in the backdrop of the burglary at Adamdighi branch of the country’s largest public sector bank to review the safety measures and recommend further actions in this regard. But most people tend to berate the steps just as eye wash to cover up the failures of the bank management and the regulars by switching the public focus from repeated high profile forgery, scam and bank breaks involving over Tk 10,000 crore of the four state owned commercial banks as media reports suggested on their follow up actions.
Moreover most private banks are also facing similar problems as collaterals of the major loan scams in the state owned commercial banks have also hit them in the sideline. They had bought bills of ladings which is a kind of intermediary commission business practiced by most commercial banks. Private banks are poised to lose over Tk 1,500 crore from buying such Sonali Bank bills and now trying to adjust the losses by way of raising interest on lending as provision.
Moreover all state-owned and private banks are facing greater risks of classified loans. At the moment the state owned banks remained overburdened with rescheduling of classified loans largely on political considerations to bail out ruling party men and their business.
On the other hand, private banks are facing threats from single exposure of loan portfolios to businesses owned mainly by bank sponsors and their family members. The most disturbing factor is that Bangladesh Bank, which is the regulatory authority in the banking sectors remained largely ineffective with no pro-active role to reign in the exponentially reckless situation threatening the safety of banks and public money they are holding in deposits.
BB failed in its role
The governor of Bangladesh Bank (BB) is busy with rather small but eye catching matters like opening of ten taka bank account for marginal farmers or baggers as he made the announcement last week while big swindlers are breaking the vaults and burglars with connections are cutting tunnels to take away money from banks.
Meanwhile, loan scandals like the Hallmark Group’s swindling of over Tk 3,650 crore or Bismillah Group’s taking away over thousand crore taka are passing by into oblivion under the so-called anti-graft legal actions of the Anti-Corruption Commission. The most annoying fact is that the ACC is prosecuting mid-level Sonali Bank or other bank officials for handling the loan cases while the big fishes like the board members, chairman or managing director who in fact had approved the loans remained out of ACC reach, apparently on government intervention.
This is because as most people tend to believe Sonali Bank chairman or managing director are political nominees and had acted under the influence of a senior adviser to the Prime Minister who almost regularly visited the Rupashi Bangla branch of the Sonali Bank, which approved and made disbursement of the loan to Hallmark Group.
News reports blamed most of the politically appointed directors at the state owned commercial banks for their close ties with private parties having political blessings of the government to give approval to loans and thereby benefit personally from it.
Despite repeated reminders, the Bangladesh Bank has so far failed to secure the restructuring of the management of the BASIC Back which is reportedly involved in funneling loans to big business with fictitious papers.
Question arises as to whether the country’s banking sector is safe in the hand of the present regulators in Bangladesh Bank who reportedly looks after political interest of the ruling party bosses more than anything else. Moreover, its six monthly monetary policy statement appears to be a campaign material rather having effectively executed in practice.
Self-confessed corrupt DMD
The Bangladesh Bank has showed consistent failures in recent past from the stock market scam to the last burglary in Sonali Bank’s Adamdighi branch in enforcing an effective and efficient management regime with strong compliance of discipline to prevent loans scams and even small things like burglary.
This is because the regulators are failing to enforce professionalism in running the management of the state owned banks. For instance; the Deputy managing director of Sonali Bank who handled the Hallmark loans was one of the confessed corrupt officials to the Truth Commission which was set up during the last caretaker government.
Despite the fact, he was promoted at Sonali Bank since he was a close relative of a former Chief justice of the Supreme Court whom the government had bothered so much.
Moreover the wealth statements of political nominees to the board showed some of them had amassed over hundred crores taka in cash or kind to raise questions about the sources of the money. But the Bangladesh Bank or the ACC are only chasing bank officials with total impunity to those big bosses.
Had there been strict enforcement of law, bank management would have become careful and avoid conniving with swindlers. Burglars also would not have the courage to put hand on the bank. Their big bosses who are having the hand from behind the scene would have been also careful of the rule of law.
But Bangladesh Bank is evidently having no effective control on the banking system dominated by ruling party men.
Many, however, believe that the governor of Bangladesh Bank must take a brave stance to fight back the unlawful political influence to restore proper functioning and use his full power to run the banking sector effectively.
Source: Weekly Holiday
