Destroying the economy to save the thieves

[fallstuff]

Destroying the economy to save the thieves​

Eresh Omar Jamal
Sun Dec 4, 2022 09:00 PM Last update on: Sun Dec 4, 2022 10:03 PM

When the Awami League came to power in 2009, the amount of defaulted loans stood at Tk 22,481 crore. During its tenure in the government, that amount increased to a mammoth Tk 134,396 crore as of September 2022. This happened despite the government repeatedly providing scope for defaulters to reschedule their loans and allowing for the real amount of defaulted loans to be understated through accounting manipulation which, if calculated properly, might amount to more than Tk 2 lakh crore, according to Selim Raihan, executive director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (Sanem).

Even the judiciary, which has not always had a stellar record in holding the executive branch accountable, has repeatedly expressed its disappointment at how different government institutions have failed to hold those responsible for the rising non-performing loans (NPLs) and financial scams to account. The High Court, for example, reprimanded the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on November 9 for its failure to complete the investigation of any of the 61 cases filed seven years ago over the misappropriation of more than Tk 4,000 crore from BASIC Bank branches. The court also chastised the commission for not prosecuting and arresting the main perpetrators, i.e. former chairman of the bank Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachchu, his associates, and the bank's board of directors.

For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.​

Will the government touch the ‘untouchables’?​

Read more
The commission had filed cases against 153 junior officers in 2015 over a series of defalcations that nearly bankrupted the once profitable bank. But the bank's former chairman escaped prosecution in all of the cases, despite him being involved in the scams, as per the investigations of the Bangladesh Bank and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Similarly, the court also said that the fleeing of PK Halder, another major embezzler, from the country, even after the court slapped a travel ban, spoke of an unholy entente between different agencies to save the perpetrators of such crimes.

It has also been reported that bankers, including top officials of the Bangladesh Bank, have helped many perpetrators of embezzlement and other forms of corruption to benefit from such malpractices. The High Court, in fact, had ordered the ACC to take actions against 249 Bangladesh Bank officials, including three former deputy governors and six executive directors, involved in a number of financial scams worth Tk 3,700 crore, but to no avail.


On November 27, a High Court bench, while hearing a bail petition of a former official of Shahjalal Islami Bank Limited, which extended a loan of Tk 110 crore to the Bismillah Group, observed that the ACC was preoccupied with catching petty criminals instead of the big ones. In most cases related to embezzlement and shady loans, the ACC had failed to bring the perpetrators to justice – the owners of Bismillah Group, which took about Tk 1,200 crore from five banks, for example.


Recently, the New Age reported that the Chattogram-based S Alam Group had taken more than Tk 30,000 crore from the Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd (IBBL), which the business group controls, despite the group only being entitled to borrow a maximum of Tk 215 crore from the bank as per the existing rules. According to a Bangladesh Bank audit report, the group used its influence in the bank's board and management to obtain the loan mostly through unethical mechanisms. The New Age report also quoted a senior Bangladesh Bank official as saying that the central bank did not allow its officials to conduct inspections freely into banks controlled by the group for unknown reasons. Nor did it approve their inspection reports and take action based on them.

Despite being one of the most profitable banks in Bangladesh in the past decade, Islami Bank had an observer on its board the whole time it was doing well financially. Usually, the central bank appoints such observers in banks whose financial health is poor – the observer is then withdrawn once the bank's financial health improves. But, as this daily reported on December 1, the opposite happened in the case of Islami Bank. The Bangladesh Bank observer in Islami Bank was withdrawn in March 2020 without any explanation and, ever since then, the bank has been caught up in all sorts of irregularities and chaos. Was that a coincidence?

According to Mustafizur Rahman, distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), the central bank's decision to remove its observer allowed scamsters to take loans, ignoring banking norms. If we deeply analyse the other financial scams that have occurred over the last decade, nearly all of them have the same story. And these stories draw a pattern.

The pattern seems to be, as the High Court observed, that an unholy nexus of powerful people has been aiding and abetting financial criminals – some of them powerful individuals or groups themselves – to commit crimes that are ruining the financial health of our banks and is pushing the overall financial sector into the abyss. And this has been going on for so long that, at this point, it has become quite clear to everyone – except for the finance minister, it seems.

But the finance minister himself should have been aware of this – firstly, because it is his job, and secondly, because his predecessor himself had admitted in parliament that what was happening in the financial sector was plain and simply "dacoity." And that these dacoits could not be held accountable because they were being backed by his own party members.

Unfortunately, within the government at present, no other official seems to have the courage to admit what the former finance minister did – certainly
not the current finance minister, who apparently seems unaware of what is going on in our financial sector. As for the government, it seems to be hell-bent on pursuing the policy of saving the perpetrators which, if it continues down its current trajectory, will ultimately end up destroying our economy.



Eresh Omar Jamal is assistant editor at The Daily Star. His Twitter handle is @EreshOmarJamal

Destroying the economy to save the thieves

An unholy nexus of powerful people are protecting those who've stolen thousands of crores.

www.thedailystar.net

 

[xyxmt]

with this much corruption in BD you are all still Pakistani at heart

 

[Imran Khan]

for once i thought its about pakistan .

 

[alphapak]

for once i thought its about pakistan .

Same here, This is exactly what Bajwa has done to Pakistan.

 

[BananaRepublicUK]

Destroying the economy to save the thieves​

Eresh Omar Jamal
Sun Dec 4, 2022 09:00 PM Last update on: Sun Dec 4, 2022 10:03 PM

When the Awami League came to power in 2009, the amount of defaulted loans stood at Tk 22,481 crore. During its tenure in the government, that amount increased to a mammoth Tk 134,396 crore as of September 2022. This happened despite the government repeatedly providing scope for defaulters to reschedule their loans and allowing for the real amount of defaulted loans to be understated through accounting manipulation which, if calculated properly, might amount to more than Tk 2 lakh crore, according to Selim Raihan, executive director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (Sanem).

Even the judiciary, which has not always had a stellar record in holding the executive branch accountable, has repeatedly expressed its disappointment at how different government institutions have failed to hold those responsible for the rising non-performing loans (NPLs) and financial scams to account. The High Court, for example, reprimanded the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on November 9 for its failure to complete the investigation of any of the 61 cases filed seven years ago over the misappropriation of more than Tk 4,000 crore from BASIC Bank branches. The court also chastised the commission for not prosecuting and arresting the main perpetrators, i.e. former chairman of the bank Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachchu, his associates, and the bank's board of directors.

For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.​

Will the government touch the ‘untouchables’?​

Read more
The commission had filed cases against 153 junior officers in 2015 over a series of defalcations that nearly bankrupted the once profitable bank. But the bank's former chairman escaped prosecution in all of the cases, despite him being involved in the scams, as per the investigations of the Bangladesh Bank and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Similarly, the court also said that the fleeing of PK Halder, another major embezzler, from the country, even after the court slapped a travel ban, spoke of an unholy entente between different agencies to save the perpetrators of such crimes.

It has also been reported that bankers, including top officials of the Bangladesh Bank, have helped many perpetrators of embezzlement and other forms of corruption to benefit from such malpractices. The High Court, in fact, had ordered the ACC to take actions against 249 Bangladesh Bank officials, including three former deputy governors and six executive directors, involved in a number of financial scams worth Tk 3,700 crore, but to no avail.


On November 27, a High Court bench, while hearing a bail petition of a former official of Shahjalal Islami Bank Limited, which extended a loan of Tk 110 crore to the Bismillah Group, observed that the ACC was preoccupied with catching petty criminals instead of the big ones. In most cases related to embezzlement and shady loans, the ACC had failed to bring the perpetrators to justice – the owners of Bismillah Group, which took about Tk 1,200 crore from five banks, for example.


Recently, the New Age reported that the Chattogram-based S Alam Group had taken more than Tk 30,000 crore from the Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd (IBBL), which the business group controls, despite the group only being entitled to borrow a maximum of Tk 215 crore from the bank as per the existing rules. According to a Bangladesh Bank audit report, the group used its influence in the bank's board and management to obtain the loan mostly through unethical mechanisms. The New Age report also quoted a senior Bangladesh Bank official as saying that the central bank did not allow its officials to conduct inspections freely into banks controlled by the group for unknown reasons. Nor did it approve their inspection reports and take action based on them.

Despite being one of the most profitable banks in Bangladesh in the past decade, Islami Bank had an observer on its board the whole time it was doing well financially. Usually, the central bank appoints such observers in banks whose financial health is poor – the observer is then withdrawn once the bank's financial health improves. But, as this daily reported on December 1, the opposite happened in the case of Islami Bank. The Bangladesh Bank observer in Islami Bank was withdrawn in March 2020 without any explanation and, ever since then, the bank has been caught up in all sorts of irregularities and chaos. Was that a coincidence?

According to Mustafizur Rahman, distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), the central bank's decision to remove its observer allowed scamsters to take loans, ignoring banking norms. If we deeply analyse the other financial scams that have occurred over the last decade, nearly all of them have the same story. And these stories draw a pattern.

The pattern seems to be, as the High Court observed, that an unholy nexus of powerful people has been aiding and abetting financial criminals – some of them powerful individuals or groups themselves – to commit crimes that are ruining the financial health of our banks and is pushing the overall financial sector into the abyss. And this has been going on for so long that, at this point, it has become quite clear to everyone – except for the finance minister, it seems.

But the finance minister himself should have been aware of this – firstly, because it is his job, and secondly, because his predecessor himself had admitted in parliament that what was happening in the financial sector was plain and simply "dacoity." And that these dacoits could not be held accountable because they were being backed by his own party members.

Unfortunately, within the government at present, no other official seems to have the courage to admit what the former finance minister did – certainly
not the current finance minister, who apparently seems unaware of what is going on in our financial sector. As for the government, it seems to be hell-bent on pursuing the policy of saving the perpetrators which, if it continues down its current trajectory, will ultimately end up destroying our economy.



Eresh Omar Jamal is assistant editor at The Daily Star. His Twitter handle is @EreshOmarJamal

Destroying the economy to save the thieves

An unholy nexus of powerful people are protecting those who've stolen thousands of crores.

www.thedailystar.net

Given the inflation and devaluation - in dollar terms the default is not much more

But a Dhakaya EKADEMIK cannot be expected to grasp that vital detail

According to @bluesky inflation has been running at around 110%

So absolute dollar terms the default is significantly lower than 2009

@EasyNow
@UKBengali

 

[UKBengali]

with this much corruption in BD you are all still Pakistani at heart

Dude, this is minor in the grand scheme of things.

The BD economy is still the fastest growing large developing economy in the world. If it was that corrupt it would not be growing so fast.

 

[fallstuff]

It is free for AL folks in this mega bank buffet !
When there is heist (2016) at the Bangladesh Bank , well anything goes.

CID fails to present probe report on Bangladesh Bank heist today, next date Jan 13

A Dhaka court today set January 13 to submit a probe report in the case filed over Bangladesh Bank (BB) reserve heist that took place in 2016.

www.thedailystar.net

 

[khansaheeb]

Destroying the economy to save the thieves​

Eresh Omar Jamal
Sun Dec 4, 2022 09:00 PM Last update on: Sun Dec 4, 2022 10:03 PM

When the Awami League came to power in 2009, the amount of defaulted loans stood at Tk 22,481 crore. During its tenure in the government, that amount increased to a mammoth Tk 134,396 crore as of September 2022. This happened despite the government repeatedly providing scope for defaulters to reschedule their loans and allowing for the real amount of defaulted loans to be understated through accounting manipulation which, if calculated properly, might amount to more than Tk 2 lakh crore, according to Selim Raihan, executive director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (Sanem).

Even the judiciary, which has not always had a stellar record in holding the executive branch accountable, has repeatedly expressed its disappointment at how different government institutions have failed to hold those responsible for the rising non-performing loans (NPLs) and financial scams to account. The High Court, for example, reprimanded the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on November 9 for its failure to complete the investigation of any of the 61 cases filed seven years ago over the misappropriation of more than Tk 4,000 crore from BASIC Bank branches. The court also chastised the commission for not prosecuting and arresting the main perpetrators, i.e. former chairman of the bank Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachchu, his associates, and the bank's board of directors.

For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.​

Will the government touch the ‘untouchables’?​

Read more
The commission had filed cases against 153 junior officers in 2015 over a series of defalcations that nearly bankrupted the once profitable bank. But the bank's former chairman escaped prosecution in all of the cases, despite him being involved in the scams, as per the investigations of the Bangladesh Bank and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Similarly, the court also said that the fleeing of PK Halder, another major embezzler, from the country, even after the court slapped a travel ban, spoke of an unholy entente between different agencies to save the perpetrators of such crimes.

It has also been reported that bankers, including top officials of the Bangladesh Bank, have helped many perpetrators of embezzlement and other forms of corruption to benefit from such malpractices. The High Court, in fact, had ordered the ACC to take actions against 249 Bangladesh Bank officials, including three former deputy governors and six executive directors, involved in a number of financial scams worth Tk 3,700 crore, but to no avail.


On November 27, a High Court bench, while hearing a bail petition of a former official of Shahjalal Islami Bank Limited, which extended a loan of Tk 110 crore to the Bismillah Group, observed that the ACC was preoccupied with catching petty criminals instead of the big ones. In most cases related to embezzlement and shady loans, the ACC had failed to bring the perpetrators to justice – the owners of Bismillah Group, which took about Tk 1,200 crore from five banks, for example.


Recently, the New Age reported that the Chattogram-based S Alam Group had taken more than Tk 30,000 crore from the Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd (IBBL), which the business group controls, despite the group only being entitled to borrow a maximum of Tk 215 crore from the bank as per the existing rules. According to a Bangladesh Bank audit report, the group used its influence in the bank's board and management to obtain the loan mostly through unethical mechanisms. The New Age report also quoted a senior Bangladesh Bank official as saying that the central bank did not allow its officials to conduct inspections freely into banks controlled by the group for unknown reasons. Nor did it approve their inspection reports and take action based on them.

Despite being one of the most profitable banks in Bangladesh in the past decade, Islami Bank had an observer on its board the whole time it was doing well financially. Usually, the central bank appoints such observers in banks whose financial health is poor – the observer is then withdrawn once the bank's financial health improves. But, as this daily reported on December 1, the opposite happened in the case of Islami Bank. The Bangladesh Bank observer in Islami Bank was withdrawn in March 2020 without any explanation and, ever since then, the bank has been caught up in all sorts of irregularities and chaos. Was that a coincidence?

According to Mustafizur Rahman, distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), the central bank's decision to remove its observer allowed scamsters to take loans, ignoring banking norms. If we deeply analyse the other financial scams that have occurred over the last decade, nearly all of them have the same story. And these stories draw a pattern.

The pattern seems to be, as the High Court observed, that an unholy nexus of powerful people has been aiding and abetting financial criminals – some of them powerful individuals or groups themselves – to commit crimes that are ruining the financial health of our banks and is pushing the overall financial sector into the abyss. And this has been going on for so long that, at this point, it has become quite clear to everyone – except for the finance minister, it seems.

But the finance minister himself should have been aware of this – firstly, because it is his job, and secondly, because his predecessor himself had admitted in parliament that what was happening in the financial sector was plain and simply "dacoity." And that these dacoits could not be held accountable because they were being backed by his own party members.

Unfortunately, within the government at present, no other official seems to have the courage to admit what the former finance minister did – certainly
not the current finance minister, who apparently seems unaware of what is going on in our financial sector. As for the government, it seems to be hell-bent on pursuing the policy of saving the perpetrators which, if it continues down its current trajectory, will ultimately end up destroying our economy.



Eresh Omar Jamal is assistant editor at The Daily Star. His Twitter handle is @EreshOmarJamal

Destroying the economy to save the thieves

An unholy nexus of powerful people are protecting those who've stolen thousands of crores.

www.thedailystar.net

The Achilles heal of the Indian subcontinent, how it has become colonised multiple times by foreigners: CORRUPTION

 

[Species]

When the Awami League came to power in 2009, the amount of defaulted loans stood at Tk 22,481 crore. During its tenure in the government, that amount increased to a mammoth Tk 134,396 crore as of September 2022. This happened despite the government repeatedly providing scope for defaulters to reschedule their loans and allowing for the real amount of defaulted loans to be understated through accounting manipulation which, if calculated properly, might amount to more than Tk 2 lakh crore

10x increase in 15 years, they are looting like there's no tomorrow. lol

 

[BananaRepublicUK]

10x increase in 15 years, they are looting like there's no tomorrow. lol

Eh!

Inflation and devaluation has also been 10 times - according to you guys.

Soooooo!

In absolute terms the looting is significantly down

 

[UKBengali]

Eh!

Inflation and devaluation has also been 10 times - according to you guys.

Soooooo!

In absolute terms the looting is significantly down

These guys contradict themselves within 5 minutes.

They have made up their minds and then find "evidence" to back this up where it should be the other way round.

Their world is a utopia of perfection where the rulers are 100% clean but what they fail to understand is that the rulers are just a representation of the population and so if the population was more honest then the rulers as well would be.

AL needs to do a bit of looting in order to keep it's power base happy and hence carry on its rule. If it tried to stamp down on it too heavily then its supporters would desert it and it would be out of office. BD would then flounder like it did before AL came into power.

As long as the vast majority of public funds are used to help the people and grow the economy, then that should be sufficient. That is what is happening now and we should not worry about around 5% of the money going to the BAL members.


Edit - 10 times increase in 15 years in GDP share term is under just 2 times more due to economic growth and currency devaluation. It is no big deal.

 

[BananaRepublicUK]

These guys contradict themselves within 5 minutes.

They have made up their minds and then find "evidence" to back this up where it should be the other way round.

Their world is a utopia of perfection where the rulers are 100% clean but what they fail to understand is that the rulers are just a representation of the population and so if the population was more honest then the rulers as well would be.

AL needs to do a bit of looting in order to keep it's power base happy and hence carry on its rule. If it tried to stamp down on it too heavily then its supporters would desert it and it would be out of office. BD would then flounder like it did before AL came into power.

As long as the vast majority of public funds are used to help the people and grow the economy, then that should be sufficient. That is what is happening now and we should not worry about around 5% of the money going to the BAL members.


Edit - 10 times increase in 15 years in GDP share term is under just 2 times more due to economic growth and currency devaluation. It is no big deal.

BAL is a grassroots party. Their corrupt money is distributed to the grassroots members. A small amount ends up abroad. Hence there are no BAL dollar billionaires.

Whereas BNP is a militaristic top down organisation. Most of the fat ends up top. And ultimately out of the country.

More importantly!

How can BD industrialise when the country is full of these dim wits we see on PDF?

How many of these morons would get a job for a top company in US or U.K.?

It’s all good pontificating but can you walk the walk?

All these buggers do is wait for the next Pinaki sketch and then spread it like a virus.

Complete inability to think for themselves!!!

Thanks god our forefathers left BD otherwise we too would be victims of Dhakaya IDUKATION.

 

[UKBengali]

BAL is a grassroots party. Their corrupt money is distributed to the grassroots members. A small amount ends up abroad. Hence there are no BAL dollar billionaires.

Whereas BNP is a militaristic top down organisation. Most of the fat ends up top. And ultimately out of the country.

More importantly!

How can BD industrialise when the country is full of these dim wits we see on PDF?

How many of these morons would get a job for a top company in US or U.K.?

It’s all good pontificating but can you walk the walk?

All these buggers do is wait for the next Pinaki sketch and then spread it like a virus.

Complete inability to think for themselves!!!

Thanks god our forefathers left BD otherwise we too would be victims of Dhakaya IDUKATION.

The dimwits we see here on pdf talk the loudest and luckily there are plenty of smart and hardworking people in BD growing the economy at some of the fastest rates in the world.

None of them have the ability to think for themselves and they copy and paste buzzwords like "checks and balances" without understanding under what situation it may be relevant.

Like I keep saying, they are talking about things way beyond their limited intellectual capabilities and that is why the vast majority are on my ignore list. Waste of time trying to teach them anything as they think they know more than you.

 

[BananaRepublicUK]

The dimwits we see here on pdf talk the loudest and luckily there are plenty of smart and hardworking people in BD growing the economy at some of the fastest rates in the world.

None of them have the ability to think for themselves and they copy and paste buzzwords like "checks and balances" without understanding under what situation it may be relevant.

Like I keep saying, they are talking about things way beyond their limited intellectual capabilities and that is why the vast majority are on my ignore list. Waste of time trying to teach them anything as they think they know more than you.

As we say in Sylhet….

“Biakkkol re buddi dio-na. Ek pet bath diya bidai koro”…

@bluesky! Here’s your bowl of pantha baath

Unfortunately, you don’t deserve any futi maach

 

[Species]

Eh!

Inflation and devaluation has also been 10 times - according to you guys.

Soooooo!

In absolute terms the looting is significantly down

True, they should loot another 5 lakh crore before the election to make up for the inflation.