A woman board member of Grameen Bank (GB) has warned that 8.4 million poor women would show their power if the government wanted to grab their wealth.
The warning was issued at a press conference at the National Press Club in the capital on Monday by elected board member of Grameen Bank Tahsina Khatun.
The conference was organised by the nine woman board members in the wake of the government’s decision to break the existing structure of the bank as had been recommended by the Grameen Bank Commission.
The commission has recommended that the government splits Grameen Bank into 19 separate bodies and takes control of a 51% share of the bank.
The government currently owns only 3%.
The Grameen Bank Commission was formed in 2012 to consider the institutional strengths, weaknesses and constraints, recommend measures for ensuring good governance, comment on ownership and composition of the bank’s board of directors, review and recommend the regulatory institutions and mechanisms and a scheme for defining the relationship of the associate institutions with Grameen Bank.
Tahsina also warned that the 8.4 million members of the bank would take to the streets if the government did not change its stance regarding dismantling the noble winning micro-credit organisation by inking an amendment to the Grameen Bank Ordinance in line with the commission’s recommendations.
“We have protested the Grameen Bank Commission’s proposed structure because the commission did not seek opinion from the woman members,” she said.
Reading out her written statement, Tahsina said: “The government wants grab the Grameen Bank by flexing muscles. We do not give consent to that because we know what has happened with the biggest state-owned bank Sonali Bank and the Hall-mark scam.”
She pointed out that the Grameen Bank had never been operated with the government’s money. If the government forcefully grabbed its majority ownership, the hard-earned savings of the poor women would be plundered, she feared.
“The government’s move to amend the Grameen Bank Ordinance and split the institution into 19 will not be successful. We will most definitely block that move,” Tahsina affirmed.
Tahsina said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a recent programme had talked about all the initiatives taken by her government to promote woman entrepreneurship but she did not say anything about what was happening with GB with whom the fates of 8.4 million women were directly involved.
Regarding the allegations that Grameen Bank founder Professor Mohammad Yunus transferred funds to the subsidiaries, Tahsina said there was no ownership dispute between Grameenphone and Grameen Bank.
“We were never financially affected by the alleged transfer of funds by Prof Yunus,” Tahsina said.
Replying to a query, another board member Rozina Khatun said although Prof Yunus could not be the managing director of the bank, there was no bar to him being its chairman.