integra
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Prof Muhammad Yunus has been removed from the post of managing director (MD) of the Grameen Bank.
A Bangladesh Bank letter on Wednesday said the microcredit pioneer has been stripped off his position in line with the Grameen Bank ordinance, 1983.
According to the ordinance, Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Grameen Bank in 2006 for his work making small loans to poor entrepreneurs, was serving as a whole-time officer and the chief executive of the Bank.
The Bangladesh Bank earlier sent a letter to the finance ministry saying that Yunus should be removed from the Grameen Bank.
On February 28, Khondaker Muzammel Huq, the chairman of Grameen Bank, presented the letter at a board meeting that questioned the post of Professor Muhammad Yunus as its managing director beyond his retirement age.
The letter was written by a Bangladesh Bank official to the finance ministry expressing an opinion that Prof Yunus continued to hold the post beyond his retirement age of 60, which was not lawful.
Muzammel, a former employee who had served under Yunus, has recently been appointed by the government as chairman of Grameen. Monday’s meeting with Grameen directors came in the wake of a controversy surrounding the micro-lender.
On February 14, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said the government had asked the Nobel laureate to stay away from Grameen Bank as long as a review of the microlender continues.
"I suggested Mr Yunus should step aside as Grameen Bank's managing director, transferring his powers to the deputy managing director," AMA Muhith told BBC Bangla Service that day.
The minister also informed that Yunus rejected the suggestion, and said Grameen Bank would collapse in his absence.
"I don't think Mr Yunus can run Grameen Bank throughout his life," the finance minister said, referring to the microcredit pioneer who presided over the organisation for about 40 years.
The minister also said the related law does not allow anybody to stay in the same post for so long.
The origin of Grameen Bank can be traced back to 1976 when Muhammad Yunus, head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong, launched an action research project to examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services targeted at the rural poor, the Grameen Bank website reads.
Following the release of a Norwegian documentary in December which accused Yunus and Grameen of malpractice, the Nobel laureate has been vilified in the Bangladeshi press and seen his bank become the target of a government investigation.
After the release of the documentary, the Norwegian government opened an investigation and expressed its full satisfaction over the use of its funds.
Supporters of the 70-year-old Yunus, including former Irish president Mary Robinson, said there is a campaign of politically orchestrated attacks on the Nobel laureate after he fell out with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2007.
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Well now the idiots have done it. I'm in for Yunus if he ever goes into politics, I need atleast someone to support .
