Employees of the Grameen Bank said yesterday they were panicked and worried about the new Grameen Bank law as they feared that the law would create division and conflict in the bank at all levels and would hamper loan collections and distribution.
“With this, Grameen Bank will gradually be destroyed,” President of Grameen Bank Employees’ Association Shamsul Alam said in a written statement at the bank’s headquarters in Mirpur.
He said after the law was passed in the parliament, there was panic amongst 26,000 employees of the bank about the future of the organisation and their fates.
He urged the government to consider the interests of the 26,000 employees and their families and not to do anything that would harm the bank.
He said they would continue their protests against what they said were “attempts to destroy” Grameen Bank.
Among others, Grameen Bank General Manager Dulal Chandra Kor and former president of the employees’ association Shagir Rashid Chowdhury spoke at the press briefing. Employees also wore black badges and staged a sit-in in front of the bank’s headquarters.
On Wednesday, the founder and former managing director of Grameen Bank Muhammad Yunus condemned the passage of the new law to govern the microcredit agency.