Grameen Bank on Sunday submitted a complaint to the Anti-Corruption Commission against its founder and Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, accusing him of financial irregularities and abuse of power.聽
A team led by Grameen Bank鈥檚 deputy managing director Pradeep Kumar Saha submitted the complaint to ACC chairman Mohammad Moinuddin Abdullah at the commission鈥檚 headquarters in Dhaka.
After submitting the complaint, Pradeep Kumar told journalists that Professor Yunus provided a loan of Tk 9.5 crore to his family-owned company 鈥楶ackages Corporation Limited鈥� from聽 Grameen Bank, violating rules and abusing his power.
According to the complaint, an objection was raised in the special inspection report of Bangladesh Bank regarding Grameen Bank鈥簊 financing of a company named 鈥楶ackages Corporation Limited鈥� in Chattogram, owned by Yunus and his family members.
The Packages Corporation Limited is owned by Yunus himself, his father, Dula Mia, and two other brothers, Abdus Salam and Muhammad Ibrahim.
Apart from this, a report of a high-powered review committee formed by the Bank and Financial Institutions Division of the Ministry of Finance and a comprehensive audit report of 40 years from 1983 to 2023 by the audit firm listed by Bangladesh Bank also found evidence of irregularities related to illegal granting of loans, loan waivers, and issuance of work orders to the Packages Corporation.
Pradeep said that Yunus, during his tenure as managing director of Grameen Bank, had provided illegal benefits of Tk 9.5 crore to his family鈥檚 printing company, Packages Corporation, since 1990, in violation of the law and abuse of power assigned by the Board of Directors of Grameen Bank.
He did this to obtain his personal and family鈥檚 financial benefits, Pradeep said.
As per the Grameen Bank Ordinance 1983, Grameen Bank loan facilities are limited only to landless poor borrowers, but he violated the law and gave huge loans to his family鈥檚 company, he said.
According to the allegation, when the company failed to repay the loan, Yunus misused the power to waive interest, even part of the capital.聽
Yunus鈥檚 lawyer, Abdullah Al Mamun, told 抖阴精品 that the allegation was submitted to the ACC with a view to harassing the Nobel laureate.
On May 30, last year, ACC filed a case against Yunus and 12 others on charges of misappropriating over Tk 25.22 crore from the Grameen Telecom Workers鈥� Profit Participation Fund. The case is now under trial at a Special Judges Court in Dhaka.
Yunus, who is facing more than 170 cases, was sentenced on January 1 this year to six months in jail by the Third Dhaka Labour Court in a case filed by DIFE for violating labour law at Grameen Telecom.
The 83-year-old Professor Yunus, known internationally as the 鈥榖anker to the poor鈥�, is credited with establishing a pioneering system of micro-finance loans that lifted millions out of poverty.
Yunus and Grameen Bank, which he founded, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering work in 2006.
