Govt bid draws flak

Accusing the government of trying to destroy the Grameen Bank, different quarters from home and abroad sharply protested the government's recent move to take over the bank.
A total of 575 teachers of the University Teacher's Association of Bangladesh (UTAB) in a statement said if the recommendations of Grameen Bank Enquiry Commission were implemented, the globally acclaimed institution would lose its uniqueness and be destroyed.
The commission, which is to “reveal” its plans for Grameen Bank on July 2,   is set to recommend breaking up the Nobel-winning bank into at least 19 zones. It is to recommend restructuring Grameen Bank in the shape of the erstwhile Bangladesh Shilpa Bank or Rural Electrification Board in order to give the government absolute control over the microcredit organisation.
“In no way the recommendations are suitable for implementation,” the statement says. UTAB's president Prof AFM Yousuf Haider and its secretary general Prof Tahmina Akhtar were among the signatories to the statement.
Meanwhile, US Representative for New Jersey's 12th congressional district Rush Holt in a statement said, “It is past time for the government of Bangladesh to cease its efforts to destroy one of the true economic marvels of our age: Grameen Bank. I call upon Secretary of State Kerry to make it clear to officials in Dhaka that America supports Grameen Bank and its work for the poor in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the world.”
Rush Holt said, “If the government of Bangladesh persists in its attacks on the bank and Prof Muhammad Yunus [Nobel laureate who founded the bank], our government should re-evaluate the wisdom of our current push to deepen political and security ties to the current government.
“Bangladesh needs more institutions like Grameen, and more pioneers like Muhammad Yunus. It is past time for the government of Bangladesh to recognise those facts and work with Prof Yunus, not against him.”
Accusing the government of conspiring to destroy Grameen Bank, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir yesterday in a press statement said the main agenda of the government was to insult Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus, who ran the bank for almost 30 years.
The BNP secretary general said the government had removed Prof Yunus from the post of managing director and was in its final push to ruin the bank.
Fakhrul protested the proposals of the commission, a government backed institution, and said if the proposals were implemented, the microcredit bank would be destroyed, pushing the poor in big trouble.