Govt successfully controls bad loans: Muhith

The finance minister, AMA Muhith, on Wednesday said that the present government had successfully controlled the bad loans despite political influence of loan default culture.Political influence is the major reason behind the bad loan culture, he told reporters after a meeting with visiting Asian Development Bank vice-president Wencai Zhang at his ministry.Muhith made the claim while available data showed that the amount of state-owned BASIC Bank’s bad loans stood at Tk 4,560 crore out of its total loans of about Tk 11,260 crore as of October.The government was forced to ask former BASIC Bank chairman Sheikh Abdul Hye to resign in June for allegedly approving huge amount of suspected loans.The volume of bad loan, also known as non-performing loan, soared to Tk 51,344.63 crore during the first six months of the current calendar year from Tk 40,583.01 crore in December 2013.The amount was almost half at the end of 2011.

Muhith, however, admitted that the defaulted loans had increased under the incumbent government after relaxing the rules on bad loans by Bangladesh Bank.He claimed that the present government was not giving any benefit to any influential people.He said that the government had no relation with private banks while commenting on Premier Bank chairman HBM Iqbal who was an influential leader of ruling Awami Leage and allegedly involved in violation of many rules.Muhith asked the ADB to increase loan in his meeting with the visiting official.He said that the annual credit by the ADB to the tune of US$1.0 billion annually had been proposed to increase to $1.5-$2.0 billion.He criticised speculative reports on the new pay scale saying those were rubbish. He said that they would receive recommendations from the appointed pay commission in December while the implementation would start in July 2015.

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