List of loan defaulters: What is the govt doing to recover defaulted loans

While attending the budget session for 2024-25 fiscal year in the Jatiya Sangsad (parliament), several members of parliament drew the finance minister’s attention to the fragility and mismanagement prevalent in the financial sector. Their observation is that a few defaulters by swindling billions of taka from the banks have pushed the banking sector as well as and the economy into a terrible crisis.

Discussions and debates about defaulted loans have been going on for years. However, due to some unknown reasons no effective measures are noticed being taken to recover the defaulted loans.

One of the reasons for this might be that the loan defaulters are even more powerful than the government and no one dares touching them.

Last Sunday, independent MP AK Azad, demanding the list of loan defaulters be published in parliament, said that the loan defaulters are the ones who have looted the banks and siphoned off the money abroad.

While according to Bangladesh Bank records, the amount of defaulted loans is said to be Tk 1.82 trillion (Tk 1.82 lakh crore), the actual amount of the defaulted loans stands at Tk 5 trillion (Tk 5 lakh crore).

While speaking on the budget, AK Azad has raised a basic question. The expenditure in the public administration sector encompasses 22.1 per cent of the budget with more than Tk 2.97 trillion (Tk 297,388 crore).

However, our development cost has been estimated to be more than Tk 2.81 trillion (Tk 281,453 crore). If the expenditure in the public administration sector weighs heavier than the development budget, how can it be possible to change the fortunes of the people?

Over Tk 1 trillion (1 lakh crore) out of the Tk 5 trillion plus (Tk 506,971 crore) allocation that has been estimated as government’s operational cost, has to be paid for loan interest.

We believe the question AK Azad raised saying, when there’s a dollar crisis prevailing in the country and the profit shares of foreign companies cannot be repaid properly, what could be the rationality behind buying new vehicles for AC (Lands) and UNOs spending millions of taka, is valid. In times of economic crisis, there should be as less expenditure as possible in the unproductive sectors.

We stand with the demand parliament member AK Azad has made about revealing the list of loan defaulters in the parliament. The names of the loan defaulters should be published because then the public will get to know that their money stored in the banks has been looted.

However, it is also true that just publishing the list is not enough in this case. The list of loan defaulters had been published twice when AHM Mustafa Kamal was the finance minister. That, however, did not reduce the defaulted loans, rather it has increased even more in the last one year.

It needs to be located where the loan defaulters are and where is the asset they had put on mortgage against the loan. There are extensive proofs of loan defaulters conspiring with corrupt bank officials.

Just as this editorial was being written, there came the news of four officials including the additional managing director of private sector’s Premiere Bank embezzled Tk 3.5 billion (Tk 3,500 crore) through false loans. In this case, the court has issued a ban against their travelling abroad as the anti-corruption commission (ACC) made an appeal in this regard.

Just like his predecessor, incumbent finance minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali also wants to recover defaulted loans through good advice. But he should know that the devil would not listen to the scriptures. There’s no point in giving good advices to the loan defaulters.

Preparing a list of the loan defaulters, legal action has to be taken against every single one of them. The responsibility of recovering the money by bringing back the loan defaulters, who have fled the country already, relies indeed on the government.