Incorrigible loan defaulters

The high-profile defaulters include Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation, Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation and Shinepukur Holdings of the Beximco Group. These organisations account for 81 percent of the total defaulted loans by 20 top clients and they are mostly government sector corporations. Whereas the public sector should lead the way for the private sector in terms of keeping clean records with banks, the former seems to be the worse defaulter. The question is: with what moral authority does the government combat the whole issue of shirking repayment of loans?

However, we do appreciate Bangladesh Bank Governor Salehuddin Ahmed's directive to the commercial banks that they must take exemplary step against at least one top defaulter in their banks so that others felt impelled to repay the money. The banks must go full speed ahead in initiating the punitive action leaving none outside the dragnet eventually.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

As the election season approaches there will be a flurry of loan rescheduling initiatives with the banks on the part of many defaulters who nurtured the ambition to be poll candidates. They will try to be sanitised thereby. Our suggestion is that the mandatory first instalment of payment must be high enough to discourage any easy sail. After all, they have squeezed the banks for five years and now they are out to come clean the easy way. We would like the list of those defaulters regularised by the banks to be made public.