Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus on Sunday said the defeat of Awami League-backed candidates in the recent polls means that the people and the shareholders of Grameen Bank do not agree to the government’s move to split the micro-lending entity.
There are 8.4m women shareholder-owners of the bank. They have families who are also voters. They will not tolerate if the bank is split and the government grabs hold of it, he told journalists.
Dr Yunus made the comments after former president and Bikalpadhara Bangladesh chief AQM Badruddoza met with him at the Yunus Centre and made assurances that Bikalpadhara would always be on Grameen Bank’s side.
The bank’s staff association has recently threatened that they would campaign against the government if it did not deviate from its move.
It appears that Grameen Bank has become a political issue. Many anti-government parties and forces are extending their supports to the Grameen Bank founder.
Dr Yunus said: “It will not be good on the part of the government if it snatches away Grameen Bank’s 97% share owned by the women.”
Claiming that the Grameen Bank has become a national organisation, he asked the countrymen to be united to foil the government’s attempt to turn it into a state-controlled entity.
Recently, the main opposition BNP, Quader Siddiqui’s Krishak Sramik Janata League, Liberal Democratic Party of Col (retd) Oli Ahmed, and also ruling government ally Jatiya Party of former military dictator HM Ershad have also expressed their support for the Nobel laureate and Grameen Bank who jointly won the Noble Peace Prize in 2006.
The Grameen Bank controversy surfaced in 2011 when Dr Yunus had been removed from the post of managing director of the bank as his age limit expired. Against the central bank decision, he went to the court, but lost the legal battle.
Many allege that Awami League is doing things against Prof Yunus due to vendetta as he moved to float a political party during the state of emergency in 2007-08 when all political activities were banned. He, however, step back from the plan.
Moreover, the military-backed caretaker government reportedly had a plan to overthrow the heads of Awami League and BNP – a plan dubbed as “minus-two formula.”
Speaking at the same venue on Sunday, Badruddoza alleged that the government’s move to split the bank into 19 pieces was aimed at stealing the bank’s property worth about Tk80bn.
“Your time is over. So, abandon your attempt to split the Grameen Bank,” he told the government. The recent city corporation polls have proved that Awami League loses when fair election is held. “It is a yellow card to the government,” Badruddoza, the founding secretary general of the BNP, said.
