Govt sacks two Janata Bank directors

FT ONLINE

The government has fired two directors from the Janata Bank which is buckling under a huge amount of default loans.

The two are Manik Chandra Dey, an additional secretary at the Financial Institutions Division, and Abdul Haque, a former executive director at the Bangladesh Bank.

The government removed them from the state-owned bank's board of directors on Wednesday after receving the Bangladesh Bank’s clearance, the central bank’s spokesman Serajul Islam told reporters on Friday.

The government had appointed Haque until July, 2020 while Dey’s tenure was supposed to end in December, 2019.

With their removal, five in 13 positions are vacant in Janata Bank board now.

Recent media reports suggest that Janata Bank has plunged into trouble after lending Tk 85 billion to the Crescent Group and the AnonTex Group.

In June, the bank’s default loans ballooned to Tk 98.79 billion or 22 per cent of total credit disbursed. Its losses in January-June period hit Tk 16 billion. It also faced a capital deficit of Tk 21.95 billion after June.

Recently, the bank announced that it will auction Crescent Group properties in a bid to recover the Tk 34.46 billion the firm had borrowed.

Official said payment of a part of the Tk 55 billion credit disbursed to AnnonTex has been defaulted on.

Bangladesh Bank’s Serajul did not make it clear if the defaulted credit had anything to do over the removal of the two directors.

“Appointments and withdrawal is entirely a government matter,” he said.

Janata bank Chairman Luna Shamsuddoha was not available for comments.