It is very dismaying that many big businesses of the country send their profits abroad but do not repay their bank loans. These business houses and others with government patronage have plundered public money and bought expensive properties abroad for living in unimaginable luxury. Really, this government can claim huge success in helping plundering of the country!
This anti-people practice of transferring money from the country was aptly highlighted at a discussion in the capital where noted economists including Wahiduddin Mahmud and Rehman Sobhan presented their views. The bank loan scams have reached such a height that even the High Court has recently reminded banks and financial institutions that they must display the loan details in their websites as bank money is people’s money and they have a right to know details of any loan transaction. The fact is much larger amounts of money are accumulated and transferred abroad by those who have business and are involved in corruption collaborating with the relevant banks.
When the nation is going through a severe economic crisis and import of goods including food grains have been seriously compromised due to the steep fall of reserves, the recent loan scams in Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) to the tune of Tk 9,135 crore has jolted the whole nation. The shock has been so great that the clients of this most trusted private bank are not finding it safe to keep their money in any bank. The people do not know where their money is safe. Though according to rules, S Alam Group is entitled to take loan of not more than Tk 215 crore, it took Tk 30,000 crore since the business conglomerate took control of the IBBL in 2017.
During the rule of this Awami League government, the country’s share market saw recession two times but the manipulating culprits could not be brought to justice because they are among the core people of this government. After looting money of small investors from share markets, the big businesses have now made banks and financial institutions their targets. For the last one decade, loan scams
in BASIC, Sonali and Janata banks were frequent.
In a country where there is no democracy and accountability of the government, the plundering of banks, financial institutions and manipulation of the share markets was only to be expected. It is now open knowledge that through manipulation of invoices, money is going out of the country when it is most needed to feed the hungry people. People’s money is not safe in the hands of this government now for a single day. Eighty per cent of the parliamentarians are now businessmen who have captured the banks and financial institutions, that is, the economy of the country.
Now, the government has to take public uprising seriously before it is too late.
