Top 300 loan defaulters named in JS

A list of 300 top loan defaulters under all the banks and financial institutions of the country’s public and private sector involving bad loans amounting to Tk 50,942 crore was revealed in the Jatiya Sangsad on Saturday.

Responding to a question of ruling Awami League legislator M Israfil Alam, finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal placed the list in a scripted answer.

Answering another question, he said that the state-owned commercial and specialised banks waived interest to the tune of Tk 1,198.24 crore against 6,163 loans in 2018..

According to the disclosure, the amount of defaulted loans with 300 business entities was Tk 50,942 crore against the total outstanding loan of Tk 70,571 crore as of April this year.

Former Bangladesh Bank deputy governor Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled, however, told New Age on Saturday that the list did not include the actual top loan defaulters.

He noted that many top defaulters successfully escaped the list obtaining stay orders from the High Court filing writ petitions against the banks’ information that they provided to the Credit Information Bureau of the Bangladesh Bank.

The nation would be able to know the actual number of the top defaulters only when the information about the stay orders and the identities of the writ petitioners would be disclosed by the finance minister, he said.

Responding to another question, Mustafa Kamal said that the total amount of bad loans in the banking and financial institutions stood at 1,02,315.19 crore in December 2018, up by Tk 43,210 crore from September 2015.

The amount of defaulted loans was Tk 59,105 crore as of September 2015, he said while answering a question from Workers Party of Bangladesh lawmaker Lutfun Nesa Khan.

According to the written statement of the finance minister, 166 of the 300 companies defaulted on their total loans.

Of the top 10 defaulters, Samannaz Super Oil Ltd owes Tk 1,049 crore, Galaxy Sweater and Yarn Dyeing Ltd owes Tk 984 crore, Rimex Footwear Ltd owes Tk 976 crore, Quantum Power Systems Ltd owes Tk 828 crore, Maheen Enterprise Ltd owes Tk 825 crore, Rupali Composite Leather Wear Ltd with Tk 798 crore, Crescent Leather Products Ltd owes Tk 776 crore, SA Oil Refinery Ltd owes Tk 707 crore, Suprov Composite Knit Ltd owes Tk 610 crore and Grameen Shakti owes Tk 601 crore.

The amount of bad loans held by the top 10 defaulters was Tk 8,154 crore or 16 per cent of the Tk 50,942 crore defaulted by the 300 top errant borrowers.

The finance minister also disclosed a list of top borrowers having outstanding amount of Tk 5 crore or bellow each.

The list showed that 14,617 individuals and institutions had taken Tk 1,741,348 crore loans since 2009, of which Tk 100,183 crore went bad.

The finance minister said that the number of loan defaulters also went up by 58,436 over the same period as the number increased to 1,70,390 as of December 2018 from  1,11,954 in September 2015, the minister said quoting the Credit Information Bureau of the Bangladesh Bank.

The finance minister gave an account of the defaulters since 2015 against the demand for information of loan defaulters and the loan amount since 2009.

He cited lack of data at the hand of the CIB since 2009.

The finance minister claimed that unexpected happenings in both domestic and international arenas affected businessmen and entrepreneurs, leading to the high growth in the number of loan defaulters as well as in the amount of defaulted loans.

The finance minister also blamed the banks for not choosing appropriate borrowers. He said that deficiency of the collaterals against the loans, the same assets shown in more banks or loans than one and showing the price of collaterals higher than the actual market prices risked the loans.

‹As a result, there remained a strong possibility of the loans turning into bad loans,› he added.

He said that the government had granted a special loan rescheduling facility aiming at maintaining the normal flow of loans to the productive sectors and at reducing the defaulted loans for the economic growth of the country. ‘By this, [we] hope that the defaulted loans will decrease in the banking sector,’ he added.

Replying to another question  from Israfil Alam, the finance minister said that from the 2015-16 fiscal year to the 2018-19 fiscal year the government provided Tk 13,612.60 crore as bailout fund to some state-owned commercial banks to meet their capital shortfalls.

Answering another question from ruling lawmaker Haji Mohammad Salim, the finance minister said that the state-owned commercial and specialised banks waived interest to the tune of Tk 1,198.24 crore in the last year.

He said that the banks waived the interest against 6,163 loans.

According to the minister’s scripted answer, Agrani Bank Ltd waived Tk 494 crore against 2,008 loans, the highest, Bangladesh Krishi Bank Tk 435 crore against 66 loans, Rupali Bank Ltd Tk 134 crore against 203 loans, Sonali Bank Ltd Tk 73 crore against 14 loans, Janata Bank Ltd Tk 54 crore against 2,473 loans, Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank Tk 4.35 crore against 1,380 loans and BASIC Bank Ltd waived Tk 1.69 crore against 19 loans.

Bangladesh Development Bank did not waive any interest in the year.

The question-answer session was started at the beginning of the day’s proceedings.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net