Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Wednesday said a policy for electing Directors to the Grameen Bank board will be worked out soon.
He said, “We’ve to formulate a rule on how to elect the Board of Directors as there’s no rule to this end at the moment.” Muhith also said the government did not want to bring changes to the institution’s ownership or its management system.
“A policy on how to elect the Board of Directors must be formulated for the Grameen Bank because there is none at the moment,” he said after a Planning Commission’s meeting on Wednesday.
“The government has no intention of changing the ownership or management style of the bank (Grameen Bank),” Muhith told reporters in reply to their queries about the microcredit bank after a meeting at the Economic Relations Division (ERD).
An instruction is there in this regard, the Finance Minister said adding that the rule would be formulated soon, possibly after the Eid-ul-Fitr.
He said the government now owns 25 percent shares of the microcredit organization, and it will remain the same.
About Grameen Bank founder Prof Muhammad Yunus’ allegation that the government was out to take over the bank, the Finance Minister said Prof Muhammad Yunus had long been alleging that the government was trying to grab the Grameen Bank apart from telling many other things. “This is utterly nonsense, this is not true.”
Prof Yunus made the allegation when the micro-credit organisation has been fighting against the government control as the Grameen Bank Commission, formed earlier to review the bank’s activities, is set to recommend its future structure after the Eid.
Referring again to the comment of Prof Yunus that the government wants to take GB’s shares by force, Muhith said: “This is utterly nonsense, and it came from his (Yunus’) brain.”
The Finance Minister said the Grameen Bank Commission in its final report might place something to this end. “I haven’t received the report yet and the Commission might recommend increasing the shares (of the government),”
Earlier, on Monday, after a meeting with Finance Minister AMA Muhith at his secretariat office, Grameen Bank chairman Mozammel Haque said the bank is now running well.
Asked whether the government would take any new initiative to restructure the bank, he replied, “I don’t think there might be new initiatives.”
-With The Independent input
