Let's See the Results
Chips seem down on unpaid bank loans amounting to a staggering Tk 15000 crore contracted both in the public and private sectors. Unfortunately as the battleline is drawn between the government and the defaulters many of whose collaterals are untraceable it is the former which ironically has to prove that the latter really have their backs to the wall. The big loan defaulters have been throwing their weight around the corridors of successive governments with such unchallenged ease that the public mind seems set to believe somehow they might never be brought to book. This government therefore, has the onerous responsibility to remove that impression being held not only by the citizens of the country but also by the World Bank and the donor community at large.
We are heartened by the news that the present government has a serious looking drive in the offing to recover overdue bank loans by means of: (a) asking banks to file suits against defaulters in an enabling environment of reformed laws; (b) getting the pending money loan cases out of the way through the instrumentality of special courts; and (c) auctioning out mortgaged property in the last resort wherever warranted. These steps have been long in coming and that they have neared finalisation makes us only happy now, but we want to see results early enough.
We have three specific suggestions to air for the recovery drive to acquire some no-nonsense under-pinnings. First, the law debarring loan defaulters from assuming the position of directors in the banks' boards must come into immediate effect. Secondly, as part of the clean-up, could we expect actions to follow on officials who in connivance with bank directors and at the political dictates of the time sanctioned those loans most unethically as some corrupt cronies rather than professionals? Finally, the much-spoken bankruptcy law, due for promulgation on August 1, would require administrative rules to be framed. In this particular exercise concerning application of the law delay will be simply self-defeating.
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