Director asks selection panel chief to quit

Tahsina Khatun, a director of Grameen Bank, called for Shamsul Bari's resignation as the chief of the selection committee formed to choose a managing director for the Nobel-winning microcredit organisation.
“I urge you [Bari] to resign from the post by honouring and expressing solidarity with the bank's 84 lakh members across the country,” Tahsina said.
On September 20, Khondaker Muzammel Huq, the government-appointed chairman, formed a five-member committee without consulting the bank's nine borrower-directors, to appoint a managing director for Grameen Bank.
Of the five members, two were from the 13-member Grameen board -- and Tahsina was one of them. 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.
Tahsina withdrew her name from the selection committee in protest against Huq's actions.
Grameen Bank's managing director post 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 bank's board, including the nine borrower-directors elected by the bank's 84 lakh members, formed a selection committee to be headed by Prof Yunus.
"It is a matter of great regret that the chairman has been unlawfully neglecting the selection committee [formed on July 26 of last year], which was backed by the majority of the members,” Tahsina said.
“The chairman has been creating obstacles in implementing the decisions of the selection committee, which is only helping the government in its plan to take away our authority to select the managing director,” she said.
“This has undermined the rights of the poor members, who are owners of 97 percent of the bank's stakes.”