Former managing director of Sonali Bank Humayun Kabir, one of the key alleged accomplices of the Hall-Mark scandal, considered as the biggest financial scam in the country’s banking sector, was celebrating Eid in Dhaka’s Uttara while the police refrain from arresting him, showing him “absconding.”
While discussing the scandals in the banking sector, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance Ministry yesterday expressed anger for not arresting Humayun against whom a warrant order prevailed.
The finance secretary and top officials at the meeting of the standing committee said they had nothing to do with the arrest as the matter had been forwarded to the Anti-Corruption Commission and the police.
The 10-member watchdog at its meeting recommended immediate arrest of all Sonali Bank officials aiding the financial scam involving around Tk3,500 crore given to a little known company, Hall-Mark, in violation of all financial rules.
“The loan receivers were arrested, but the Sonali Bank officials, including former managing director, have been spared. He [Humayun Kabir] is celebrating Eid in Uttara, but the police do not get him,” Abdur Razzaq, the standing committee chairman, told the Dhaka Tribune after the meeting at the parliament building.
“Warrant order is against him. He must be arrested and handed down due punishment for causing greatest harm to the banking sector. We have expressed severe anger for not arresting him,” he said, referring that the watchdog recommended punishment for all corrupt officials of the state-owned Sonali Bank.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith and other members of the committee Mostafizur Rahman Chowdhury, Md Abdul Wadud, Nazmul Hasan, Forhad Hossain, Shawkat Chowdhury and Akhter Jahan attended the meeting.
M Aslam Alam, secretary to the banking division of the Finance Ministry, told the meeting that the Hall-Mark scandal case was referred to the Anti-Corruption Commission and the police.
“He [Humayun] is one of the officials the investigations have detected. But we have nothing to do; we have pushed our best for his arrest. Now it is up to the police and the Anti-Corruption Commission,” the chairman quoted Aslam as saying.
Tanvir Mahmud, the chairman of Hall-Mark Group, attended a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on finance of last 9th Jatiya Sangsad, said he got the money, no matter illegally or illegally as the bank had given him.
He had relations with an adviser to the prime minister. The Hotel Sheraton branch of Sonali Bank gave Hall-Mark the loan in violation of the banking rules after Hall-Mark authorities submitted false documents in support.
The Hall-Mark chairman and his general manger had been in jail.
A previous inquiry of the parliamentary standing committee on finance in its observation said the whole board of directors of Sonali Bank and the local branch management were ‘managed’ to give the loan.
