Four top officials of Bangladesh Bank (BB) resigned on Monday after they were found guilty of allowing Salman F Rahman to get USD 30 million from the Export Development Fund (EDF) just a day before former prime minister Sheikh Hasina stepped down and fled the country.
One of the deputy governors, who resigned, was also found guilty of cooperating with the Social Islami Bank PLC (SIB) in hiding a defaulted loan worth Tk 7924 crore from the BB.
The officials who resigned are deputy governors Kazi Sayedur Rahman and Khurshid Alam, Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) chief Masud Biswas, and BB policy advisor Abu Farah Md Nasser.
The deputy governors and BFIU Chief submitted their resignations to the secretary of the Financial Institution Division (FID), while the Policy Advisor submitted his resignation to the BB governor.
Mohiuddin Rony, a coordinator of the anti-discrimination student movement, gave them an ultimatum for resignation by 1 pm Monday on behalf of the students who alleged that the top officials were involved in illegally providing $30 million from EDF to Salman F Rahman, the owner of Beximco Group, on August 4.
Meanwhile, the SIB, a second-generation commercial bank, had hidden a defaulted loan amount of Tk7924 crore with the help of a BB deputy governor.
The bank owned by S Alam Group was not able to declare dividends as a result of a shortfall in provision, a BB confidential report revealed.
According to the report, at the end of December 2023, the defaulted loans of SIB stood at Tk 9568 crore.
However, in the report sent to BB, the SIB had shown defaulted loans worth Tk 1644 crore only, hiding an amount of Tk 7924 crore in defaulted loans.
Besides, at the same time, the inspection team of the regulatory agency found a provision deficit of Tk 8127 crore in the bank. But the bank showed a provision deficit of Tk 64 crore only in the report. In this case, SIB hid Tk 8063 crore of provision deficit.
An inspection team of the central bank got this information by observing 5 main branches in Dhaka and 7 branches outside Dhaka at the end of December 2023.
“We were shocked after visiting the bank. It’s not a pond theft, it’s like stealing the sea. Where there is a provision shortfall of Tk 8127 crore, the information has been concealed showing a shortfall of only Tk 64 crore,” said an official of Off-Site Supervision Department.
