Stop meddling in Grameen Bank affairs

BNP Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, right, and Sabihuddin Ahmed, an adviser to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, left, present a bouquet to Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus during their meeting with the professor at Yunus Centre in the capital yesterday. Photo: Star

The BNP has asked the government to stop interfering in the affairs of Grameen Bank.
“We (BNP) are with the 84 lakh borrowers of Grameen Bank. If we win in the next parliamentary polls, we will bring back the bank into its previous structure,” said Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, acting secretary general of the BNP.
He was briefing reporters at the party's Nayapaltan headquarters in the capital yesterday to clarify the party's stance on the GB.
Earlier in the morning, Fakhrul held a meeting with Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus, also founder of the GB, at Yunus Centre in the capital.
Fakhrul said no political issues were discussed in the 40-minute-long meeting that started around 9:00am, adding that he had visited Yunus to greet him on his winning the US Congressional Gold Medal.
From the beginning of its tenure, the government had been insulting and harassing the Nobel laureate, Fakhrul alleged, terming the move to split the GB a conspiracy of the government.
He asked the government to use the wisdom of Yunus in the greater interest of the nation.
BNP chairperson's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sabihuddin Ahmed accompanied Fakhrul during the meeting.
The meeting was held at a time when the Grameen Bank Inquiry Commission formed by the government is planning to place a set of proposals for restructuring the microcredit organisation.