Islami Bank’s former managing director Abdul Mannan has not appeared or spoken publicly since S Alam Group took control of the bank in March 2017.
The group reportedly forced Mannan at gunpoint to resign from his post at the Shariah-based bank after he was taken hostage by members of a security agency.
After more than seven and a half years, Mannan broke his silence by joining a discussion today and recalled a few memories of his forced removal at that time.
“I was forced to resign on a pad that the Islami Bank has never used since its inception in 1983 till date,” Mannan said.
The Forum for Bangladesh Studies organised the virtual event on “Elimination of Occupancy in the Banking Sector: Will the Plight End?”.
Commemorating the deaths in the recent student-led movement that ousted the Awami League regime on August 5, he said: “Now I think I have freedom of expression. Earlier, I did not have the courage to speak even while staying abroad.”
In his short speech, he said the day he was taken hostage and forced to resign at gunpoint, many top officials of Bangladesh Bank (BB) had stayed in their offices until late at night to accept his resignation.
After taking control of the board by removal of Mannan and other top executives, the Chattogram-based conglomerate, owned by Mohammad Saiful Alam, and its associated companies took loans of Tk 74,900 crore from the bank, which is 47 percent of Islami Bank’s total outstanding loans as of March this year, according to the documents of the bank.
‘Return bank ownership to depositors’
Addressing the event, economists and experts urged the interim government and the BB to take immediate steps to bring the ownership of the banks back to the depositors to save the financial sector from further deterioration.
Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, professor of development studies at the University of Dhaka, said depositors are the real owners of banks, but sadly the top executives of banks are considered the owners.
“Unfortunately, there are no banking laws in the country that recognises depositors as owners of banks,” he said.
Titumir said the interest of depositors and small and medium enterprises, who are the backbone of the economy, will have to be reflected in the upcoming reforms in the banking sector for sustainable development.
He said there is no actual data on the exact amount of bad loans in the country.
“We could know the amount if a forensic audit is conducted.”
Mamun Rashid, chairman of Financial Excellence Ltd, said the BB has calculated the bad loans amounting to Tk 1.82 lakh crore, but it has given an estimate of Tk 3.77 lakh crore as soured loans to the International Monetary Fund.
The amount is about 20 percent of the total disbursed loans of the banks.
The exact amount of the default loans would be much higher if a forensic audit was conducted, he added.
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