Governor goes amid theft row

Atiur Rahman on Tuesday stepped down as the governor of the Bangladesh Bank after having kept the Ministry of Finance in the dark about the theft of $101 million from the country’s foreign exchange reserve for a month.
Former finance secretary Fazle Kabir has been named as the new governor of the BB that is facing serious image crisis after suspected Chinese hackers stole the funds breaking its computer security system on February 5.
Atiur had only informed finance minister AMA Muhith of the incident on March 7 when the biggest ever cyber theft had already hogged the headlines in local and international media.
In a major shake-up in the BB, the government removed two deputy governors Abul
Quasem and Nazneen Sultana on the latter part of the day. Sultana was in charge of the IT section while Quasem looked after the BB administration.
The government also made banks and financial institutions division secretary M Aslam Alam as officer on special duty (OSD) on the eventful day.

Abul Quasem

Meanwhile, the BFID has appointed a three-member committee led by former Bangladesh Bank governor Farashuddin Ahmed to probe the theft of $101 million from the BB reserve.
Mohammad Kaykobad, teacher of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and additional secretary Gokul Chand Das, are the other members.
The committee has been asked to submit an interim report in 30 days and full report in 75 days after examining issues like how the payment instructions from the BB went to the Federal Reserve in New York and the justification behind BB hiding the incident.

Nazneen Sultana

Atiur came under fire from all quarters, including the ruling Awami League and the cabinet, for keeping the nation in the dark about the biggest ever cyber theft for more than a month after the incident was detected on February 7.
He (Atiur) tendered his resignation to the Prime Minister, said finance minister AMA Muhith.
He also said the Fazle Kabir will be the next governor of Bangladesh Bank while Farashuddin Ahmed would lead the inquiry committee to probe the heist.
Kabir, now abroad, is scheduled to arrive in the country on March 18.Currently he is the chairman of Sonali Bank.
The government appointed Atiur as the BB governor on May 1, 2009 for four years and extended his tenure for another three years and three months, up to August 2, 2016.
During his tenure, the outgoing governor has been criticised for BB’s monitoring lapses to check the worst ever share market collapse and a series of loan scams in state-owned banks Sonali, Janata and BASIC banks.
Atiur, who made overseas tours at least once in a month over the past 14 months, submitted his resignation a day after concluding his weeklong visit to India.
He told reporters in a press conference in the afternoon that he opted to resign willingly, out of ‘moral responsibility’ and to protect the image of the Bangladesh Bank he ‘built’ over the last seven years.
Defending himself for not informing the finance minister about the money heist, he said he took some time since the incident coincided with the ATM fraud in the banking sector and it felt like the country was under a kind of ‘terrorist attack.’

Philippine central bank officials take their oaths Tuesday prior to the start of the Philippine Senate Blue Ribbon Committee probe into how about $81m of Bangladesh’s stolen funds were transmitted to four private accounts at a branch of the RCBC in Manila, Philippines. — AP Photo

He said, whatever I did, I did in the interest of the country. ‘I didn’t want the incident to create any panic in the banking sector,’ he added.
BFID officials said they had completed all procedure to cancel his contractual appointment unless Atiur submitted his resignation.
BB filed a case with Motijheel Police Station in the capital in connection with the $101 million heist from its account with the US Federal Reserve Bank, nearly 40 days after the incident, on Tuesday.
On Monday, in the cabinet meeting, Muhith for the second time in two days disparaged the BB for keeping him in the dark about the cyber theft from the central bank’s reserve, in the name of ‘secrecy’, and even informing the Prime Minister about the incident two days after the case was detected by the central bank.
In an outburst directed at the BB’s top management, Muhith said the central bank had shown ‘audacity’ by keeping him in the dark.
On March 7, the governor sent a letter to the finance minister informing him about the theft after the incident had already grabbed the headlines in local and foreign media.
Cyber security experts have said computer hackers could not have had access to central bank’s security code without any assistance from Bangladesh Bank officials.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net