Director Tahsina pulls out of selection body

Tahsina Khatun, a director of Grameen Bank, yesterday withdrew her name from the selection committee to pick the managing director of the microcredit organisation.
In a statement, Tahsina said she had resigned in protest against the formation of the committee by the GB chairman ignoring suggestions of the nine borrower-directors of the bank.
On September 20, Khondaker Muzammel Huq, government-appointed chairman of the bank, formed a five-member committee to find out a managing director for the Nobel Peace prize winning institution.
Of the five members, two were picked from the Grameen Bank board and Tahsina was one of them.
“We don't know anything about the three members, including the chairman of the selection committee. So, we can't give any opinion,” Tahsina said in the statement.
She said the nine directors elected by the bank's 84 lakh members across the country are the majority of the 13-member board. But the selection committee was formed without consulting them.
The Huq-formed selection committee has Shamsul Bari, a former United Nations official, as its chairman.
The other members are Prof Baqui Khalily, executive director of Institute of Microfinance, Shirin Sheikh Mainuddin, former vice president of American Express Bank and M Shah Alam Sarwar, a Grameen board member and also managing director of Trust Bank Ltd.
The post of the managing director of Grameen Bank has been vacant since May last year when Prof Muhammad Yunus stepped down from the bank he founded more than three decades ago.
On July 26 last year, the GB board formed a selection committee headed by Nobel laureate Prof Yunus. At the following meeting of the board, the borrower-directors endorsed the committee.
The members of their selection committee were Akbar Ali Khan, a former caretaker government adviser, Khaled Shams, a former deputy managing director of Grameen Bank, Kamrul Hasan, a former member of Grameen Bank board and Rozina Begum, who was later replaced by Tahsina.
But the chairman, appointed in January last year, declined to endorse the committee.
"We deem the selection committee headed by Prof Yunus as the suitable selection committee to pick the managing director," said Tahsina.