Where was the central bank?
The Farmers Bank is in doldrums. With the bank failing to come up with Tk 700 crore to repay other banks over the last two months, we are beginning to wonder if the bank can recover at all. Because of the nature of the inter-banking lending conditions, it has now been discovered that all banking rules have been flouted and the bank has resorted to settling debts using treasury bonds. The data speaks for itself. As of September 2017, the bank had deposits totalling Tk 5,170 crore and lent Tk 5,066.39 crore, which is unheard of in any credible banking institution.
We would like to know what the central bank has been doing, especially in light of the fact that an investigation carried out in November 2015 found Tk 400 crore. Precisely what has the observer been observing over the past one and a half years or more? The situation has been deteriorating in the bank for nearly two years and the rot in Farmers Bank is the same rot that had in earlier years engulfed the state-owned banks.
Hence, the onus is as much on the central bank as it is on the corrupt officials of the Farmers Bank for having allowed malpractices to continue unabated without blowing the whistle. Now that the financial institution is in a state of utter disarray, it has been put on life support by the central bank that is costing the national exchequer Tk 150 crore per month. The real question now is whether perpetrators of the Farmers Bank scam, for that is exactly what it is, will be punished for their crime, or will this scam join the ever-growing list of bank scams where no justice is meted out.
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