Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday said the atmosphere at Grameen Bank was horrible for appointing executives and holding an election of new directors and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was responsible for this.
“The government has not caused any problem to the functioning of the Grameen Bank management. Professor Muhammad Yunus enacted every regulation of the bank and that definitely created the problems,” Muhith said.
He was talking to reporters after a meeting with the representatives of the International Arbitration Centre at the Finance Ministry auditorium.
Muhith said Yunus had set the age limit for the bank’s managing director but he did not obey the regulation himself. “So, I asked him to resign from the post, but he did not listen.”
He said Yunus had then gone to court and filed several cases against the move of the board of directors, which had a negative impact on the bank’s operations.
“As a result, I have introduced new rules and regulations for Grameen Bank so its board can function smoothly,” he added. The tenures of nine female members of the board, who are known to be loyal to Yunus, expired recently.
Muhith said: “They are no longer members of the directors.”
He, however, admitted that the nine female directors would stay in the board until a new committee was formed.
On the delay in election to appoint new directors, Muhith said: “We are yet to find an election commissioner to conduct the Grameen Bank election under the new rules.”
Tahsina Khatun, one of the nine outgoing directors, said: “The Grameen Bank management would not have faced any crisis if the government had not imposed the amendment to the bank’s regulation.”
She said it was wrong of the finance minister to blame Muhammad Yunus for the existing crisis.
