Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Thursday said it was Muhammad Yunus who was destroying Grameen Bank, not the present government.
“The government has been unable to appoint the chairman of Grameen Bank because of Prof Yunus,” he told reporters after a meeting with the officials of Teletalk and principal and teachers of MC College in Sylhet on distributing admission form through the state-owned mobile phone operator at the Secretariat.
The finance minister said Yunus did a good job to the country by establishing the financial practice of giving loans to people without collateral in the country for the first time. He, however, said the Indian government had started the practice in 1972, providing people with loans of Tk6,000 without collateral.
The minister said: “We have given Nobel peace prize winner Prof Muhammad Yunus credit for his work and he operated the Grameen Bank smoothly and popularised the microcredit system.”
Yunus was the pioneer of microcredit in the global arena but now his statements were “all lies,” and that was the reason he was failing to hold his pioneering position, Muhith alleged.
“The government will set up the Palli Sanchay Bank inspired by Professor Yunus’ Grameen Bank as its deposit rate is good at all time,” Muhith said, adding that the proposed bank would be a specialised one – a savings bank for the poor.
On Yunus’ call for votes for those who supported Grameen Bank in next general election, the finance minister said it was propaganda of the Yunus Centre.
“How can Yunus have an office on the Grameen Bank premises at a minimum rent and spread his propaganda against the government and turn the Grameen Bank inactive? It is not fair and it is unjust,” he said.
Muhith alleged that money for the operation of the Yunus Centre came from across the globe while Yunus had invested Tk540m from his own account.
The finance minister said after enactment of the Grameen Bank Law 2013, board members would be unseated and then a general election would be finally held after 30 years.
“Prof Yunus has always selected the board members over the past 30 years without any election,” he said.
Regarding the payment of taxes of Grameen Bank and its 54 associate companies, Muhith said they would have to pay the taxes from now as Yunus had already given a statement that there was no relation between these organisations.
“Yunus stole the name ‘Grameen’ for all these 54 associates only to get tax waiver for those firms,” he said.
On repatriation of Grameenphone’s $500m as reported by the Grameen Bank Commission, Muhith said: “We will not take any initiative to return the Grameenphone fund from Norway because the government is now at the end of its tenure.”
Prof Yunus also cannot claim the fund, he added.
He said Telenor had promised to return 16% shares to Grameen Telecom in 2002, but later it refused to admit it.
When contacted for comment, Sharmen Ferdush, a spokesperson of Yunus Centre, told the Dhaka Tribune that Yunus had already been informed about the finance minister’s comment but he was at a meeting in Malaysia.
“We hope that Professor Muhammad Yunus will make a statement on Friday about the finance minister’s comment,” she said.