Grameen Bank performs much better after departure of Yunus: MD

Grameen Bank’s Managing Director (MD) Md Abdur Rahim Khan has said Grameen Bank has performed much better after the resignation of its founder and former managing director Muhammad Yunus.

Md Abdur Rahim Khan made the remarks at a view-exchange meeting with journalists held at the Grameen Bank headquarters in the capital’s Mirpur area on Sunday.

“After the departure of Dr Yunus from the Grameen Bank, this bank has performed much better. The bank has been placed in the highest position of progress in 2022 in all important indicators,” he said.

He said, “Dr Yunus has no share in this bank as the government owns 25 percent share of the bank while the rest of 75 percent shares belong to its members.”

Chairman of the Board of Directors of Grameen Bank Prof Dr AKM Saiful Majid said many have a common perception that the Grameen Bank could not run without its founder Dr Muhammad Yunus.

“But the perception has now been proved false as the present working force of the bank is a well disciplined force,” he said/

Grameen Bank chairman said Dr Yunus was not associated with the Grameen Bank in any capacity after 2011. The bank made a hefty profit of Tk 4.81 billion during the pandemic in 2020.

He said that the number of Grameen Bank members has crossed the milestone of 10 million while no other micro-credit organisation in the world has such number of members.

He informed that since last June, the total deposit of the bank stood at Tk 233.48 billion while the amount of realised loan stood at Tk 145.98 billion.

Grameen Bank chairman informed that the bank has been working to build a beggar-free country since some 83,367 beggars have been brought under its “Songrami Sodoshho” programme.

He said that the beggars are being returned to the normal life through distributing interest-free loans among them while there is no specific deadline for their loan repayment, even they are not pressurised to pay their loan instalments.

He said that initially a target has been set to make three poverty-prone districts of the country free from beggars while the whole of the country would be made beggar-free in phases.

Prof Saiful informed that already some 22,000 beggars have left their work and have been upgraded from the “Songrami Sodoshho” category into the general member category.