It was reported that serious allegations of corruption committed by certain high ranking officials of Bangladesh Bank were made in the confessional statement of the managing director of a leasing company who was arrested and taken into custody by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). The reports must have caused a rippling of concern in the minds of all who have a stake in the integrity of our financial system. The confessor in his statement unambiguously disclosed that one former deputy Governor of BB himself, plus one Executive Director was sheltering and protecting a bunch of high level officials in BB as they helped the notorious P K Haldar in pulling out thousands of crores of Taka from certain banks and non banking financial institutions (NBFIs) and laundering such monies abroad.
The two allegedly also persuaded other top officials of BB who went out for inspections in the affected banks and NBFIs to hide the crimes and give a clean bill of health in their functioning in their reports. In return, they allegedly received big sums of bribe money fromHaldar and associates for their cooperation. The accused Deputy Governor and Executive Director of BB were receiving payoffs from Haldar to ensure that BB’s inspections never unveiled what crimes were being committed so flagrantly.
We feel concerned from reading these reports. But would like to thank the ACC for getting this confession from a key player in the crookery. Indeed, the ACC has been playing a commendable role in first finding out the enormousness of the thefts and swindling committed by Haldar and his accomplices. It appears that ACC could successfully lay its hands on most of these persons and their stashed away ill gotten wealth ; their monies and properties ( locally available) have been already seized. ACC is now actively engaged in bringing back Haldar from Canada through INTERPOL and diplomatic contacts with his host country.
But we would specially like to applaud ACC’s actions because their vigilance has led to the unearthing of such a serious gang of crooks within the upper echelon of the BB. Now that they have been identified, we like to feel assured that the highest authorities in the country will leave nothing not done to flush very clean from top to bottom this pivotal organization with which is crucially connected the financial health of the country. It must not be business as usual like temporarily taking departmental actions such as suspension of the identified in their jobs, keeping their jobs while investigations go on, etc. The services of the accused must be terminated with immediate effect.
Even the ones in BB who have had indirect collaborative relations with them, they too should be relieved of their duties and made to stand in the dock. Of course, we are not saying that those who may prove their innocence after fair investigations, they shall not be considered for reappointment. But that is another matter and time will tell. For now, people want to see hard penal measures against the group that have been connected with heinous immoral activities and crimes sufficient to mar the good name and standing of BB. BB’s reputation as the guardian of the country’s financial system must be saved and salvaged come what may.
Bangladesh Bank (BB) is the central Bank of the country. It is just no ordinary bank. It is the apex bank in the sense of regulatory powers it enjoys in relation to all other commercial or scheduled banks in the country and also non banking financial institutions (NBFIs). In sum, it is at the heart of the financial system of the country. The role it plays in watching over the activities of banks and NBFIs reserves for it a place of great trust and reliability in the financial arena.
Should a bank or financial institution err in its policy implementation or succumb to corruption or other irregularities, it is BB that has the responsibility of admonishing it, investigating its affairs, giving of directives to it to improve and as a last resort to intervene in its management directly to force it to cure its sickness in any form. BB is expected to play this role wherever and whenever the need arises in respect of each scheduled bank or NBFI with the aim that the health of the financial sector as a whole can be scrupulously maintained always.BB’s reputation as the guardian of the country’s financial system must be saved,salvaged and restored come what may.
Notwithstanding the above, we are also fully aware that BB as an institution has been performing above average in the exercise of its functions at least in some major policy making areas. Indeed its leaders under different Governors have been doing a great deal of positive things such as successively adopting prudent monetary policies for the country, attracting innovatively inward remittances, keeping inflationary spirals at bay, operationalizing correct policy moves to help reduce the economic impact of the pandemic, etc. We do not mean to ignore these positive achievements of our central bank. But a country’s central bank must be like a foolproof organization that cannot allow even a small cancer in its body to remain lest it starts grows alarmingly undermining its viability. It must be cut off at the outset.
