MPs censure Muhith for praising Yunus

Two lawmakers – one from the Awami League and other from the Workers Party of Bangladesh – on Sunday criticised finance minister AMA Muhith for praising the contribution of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to poverty reduction through microcredit.
Taking part in the general discussion on the motion of thanks for the presidential address to the parliament, Workers Party of Bangladesh lawmaker Fazle Hossain Badsha and Awami League lawmaker Hasan Mahmud censured Muhith saying that microcredit hardly had any positive impact in reducing poverty.
Fazle Hossain Badsha urged Muhith to make statement clearing his position on Yunus, also former Grameen Bank managing director.
Terming Yunus as ‘usurer’ who had ‘hatched conspiracy’ to stop the Padma bridge project Fazle Hossain Badsha said that he could not understand how someone could praise Yunus.
‘I am stunned, what reason the minister has found to praise Yunus,’ he said in presence of Muhith.
Hasan Mahmud said that he differed with Muhith over his statement on Yunus. Microcredit hardly has any positive impact to reduce poverty. 
‘Microcredit spread in Bangladesh after 1975, as some foreign businesses planned to do it through some local people to keep the poor in the chain of poverty,’ he said.
At a discussion on loan management system of Social Development Foundation in Dhaka on March 2, Muhith lauded Yunus for ‘his contribution to the reduction of poverty’ in the country by providing microcredit to the poor.
He also credited BRAC founder Fazle Hasan Abed with helping poverty alleviation. ‘They are honoured people … we should honour them,’ Muhith said.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday censured Muhith for praising Yunus.
‘I feel sad that the other day the finance minister extolled such a person who was behind the cancellation of the World Bank funding for my Padma Bridge project. After that, I received threats from America several times,’ said Hasina.
The finance minister made the statement more than a month after the prime minister alleged told parliament on January 25 that Yunus used his connections with former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton to block World Bank funding for Padma Bridge. 

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