S Alam Group shuts down six factories

Six factories of controversial business conglomerate S Alam Group have been declared closed.

The closure notice came at noon today, Tuesday. The workers staged instant demonstrations seeing the notice.

The factory officials told the workers that the factories will reopen once the situation improves.

The notice signed by S Alam Group’s head of human resource and administration department Mohammad Borhan Uddin reads the factories will remain closed from Wednesday until further notice on the order of the company authorities due to some unavoidable reasons.

However, the security, supply and emergency departments of the factory will be kept open, he added.

The six factories are S Alam Refined Sugar Industries, S Alam Power Plant Limited, S Alam Cold Rolled Steels Limited, S Alam Cold Rolled Steels Limited-NOF, S Alam Power Generation Limited and Infinity C R Strips Industries Limited. Two of these factories are located in Kalarpul in Karnaphuli upazila, three in Icchanagar and one in Banshkhali.

More than one hundred workers of the S Alam Cold Rolled Steels Limited were seen demonstrating inside the factory. They said they would struggle running families due to the sudden closure of the factories.

S Alam Cold Rolled Steels Limited production manager Nazim Uddin said, “Everything in our factory was normal. Despite that, the declaration of the sudden closure came. We don’t know the reason. We are quite surprised with this sudden decision.”

Preferring not to be named, two S Alam Group officials at the headquarters said they were not being able to import raw materials as they were not getting any assistance from the banks. There is no way to run factories without raw materials. Therefore, the factories have been shut down temporarily. They said at least 12,000 workers and employees worked in these factories.

S Alam Group chairman Md Saiful Alam is known to be very close to the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. The business group took over the Islami Bank in 2017. After that, the group took control of several banks and insurance companies and withdrew a huge amount of money from them. Besides, the business conglomerate approved huge loans for different sister concerns of the group after taking control of the banks.

The banks under the control of S Alam Group were – National Bank, Islami Bank, First Security Islami Bank, Social Islami Bank, Union Bank, Global Islami Bank and Bangladesh Commerce Bank.

Following the fall of the Awami League government, these banks were freed from control of the S Alam Group by the Bangladesh Bank.

Bangladesh Bank governor Ahsan H Mansur, in an interview with UK-based Financial Times, said, “After taking control of the banks, S Alam Group founder Mohammad Saiful Alam and its associates siphoned off ‘at least’ 10 billion dollars from the banking system.”