Protesting the recent statement of the finance minister AMA Muhith at National Parliament that all the Grameen social businesses are owned by Yunus, the Yunus Centre said, the statement is completely false and the finance minister should apologize for making false assertion against a respected person if he is unable to produce such evidence. In a statement on Tuesday Yunus Centre said, the people of the country were shocked by the statement of the Finance Minister as none expected this kind of false statement against a respected person from the country’s Finance Minister in the Parliament.
Regrading Muhith’s remark that Dr. Yunus has taken dividends amounting to some thousand crores taka from Grameen Phone, the Yunus Centre said, “The Finance Minister should explain to the Parliament, and so to the people of the country, how Professor Yunus could receive a few thousand crore takas in dividends from an institution where he does not own any shares nor even shares bought from the stock market’.
Finance Minister told the parliament that three brothers of Professor Yunus were the directors of the companies and the rest, who do not take any profits, were hired by him.
In response to this allegation the Yunus Centre said, none of Professor Yunus’ brothers are involved in any board of directors of any Grameen-named institution.
Regarding Muhthi’s allegation that Yunus couldn’t give time and board meetings could not take place in time, the Yunus Centre said, the same number of board meetings that took place in Grameen Bank each year during the time of Professor Yunus, has taken place every year since the departure of Professor Yunus. The same amount of time that was spent on the board meetings before his departure, the very same amount of time is spent on the board meetings now.
On finance minister’s statement that Dr Yunus was Managing Director of the Bank illegally and Bangladesh Bank reminded him every year during their audit of GB, that he could no longer remain as MD as he is 60 years old, the yunus Centre said, “This statement is completely false. Before he turned 60 in 1999, during the 52nd board meeting of Grameen Bank that took place in July, Professor Yunus voluntarily informed the board of his retirement as Managing Director. During that meeting, and in accordance with Section 14 of Grameen Bank Ordinance, the board unanimously took the decision that “Until such date that the board decides otherwise, Professor Muhammad Yunus will remain as the Managing Director.”
“Dr. Yunus had tried to step down from Grameen Bank many times on several occasions. Each time it created a panicky situation among the Grameen Bank employees and borrowers. For this reason and in order to bring a smooth transition of responsibility, he met with the Finance Minster several times and sought his cooperation on this matter. On March 15, 2010, Dr. Yunus gave a hand-written letter to the Finance Minister stating his intentions (copy of letter attached). He took the letter to the Finance Minister’s home himself and read out the letter to him. Honorable Finance Minister said that he agreed with the contents of the letter and would proceed in the way proposed. Later when the Finance Minister had not taken any initiative on this issue, Professor Yunus called him by telephone and reminded him about this issue. The Finance Minister said he remembered and would proceed in the way discussed. But he did not proceed in that way, instead suddenly demanded Professor Yunus’ resignation”.
In response to Muhith’s allegation that Grameen Telecom took loan from an institution Soros with a guarantee from the board of Grameen Bank, The Yunus Centre said, this is a false statement as Grameen Bank did not provide any guarantee from Grameen Telecom’s loan from Soros.
On Muhith’s comment that Dr. Yunus claims that Grameen Bank does not have any ownership relationship with Grameen Phone which is not true, Yunus centre said, Dr. Yunus was right.
“Government can obtain the list of names of the shareholders of Grameen Phone from the appropriate government agency and resolve this issue immediately. It is not a secret issue.
Grameen Bank not only does not have any ownership relationship with Grameen Phone, it does not have any ownership relationship with any company carrying the Grameen name. A chaotic situation has unnecessarily been created by summoning all kinds of documents of all Grameen-named companies, to establish that there is an ownership relationship with Grameen Bank”.
It has been repeated many times that that these institutions are all registered with the relevant government agency as independent companies. Most of the institutions do not have any owners. How could Grameen Bank be an owner of an institution which does not have any ownership structure? These issues have been explained in detail through booklets published before by the Yunus Centre. These issues have been explained to the government several times”.
-With The Independent input
