The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has assured Bangladesh government of financing at least one mega coal-fired power project at Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar, a senior official said.

“The ADB country programme mission primarily agreed to finance a coal-fired power project at Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar,” the official told daily sun on Tuesday.

He said the Power Division got ADB’s primary nod after getting assurance from the government that the proposed coal-fired power project would be super critical one.

But the Asian donour agency is yet to finilise the amount of the fund, he said, adding, the size of the funding would be determined following the feasibility study of the power project. The government has already selected 5,000 acres of land to implement a number of power projects to generate 8320MW electricity at Moheshkhali and another 1,500 acres of land at Matarbari. It would be the second loan assurance from the donor agencies to implement the government initiative for setting up coal-fired power plants for 20,000MW electricity by 2030, sources said. The Japanese agency JICA is expected to sign $1.18 billion loan deal with Bangladesh next month to set up a 1200MW coal-fired power project at Matarbari.

In March, 2014, State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid visited the proposed coal plant sites at Moheshkhali and Matarbari and said the government would develop the sites as major coal power hubs. He said the government would compensate the local people properly while acquiring lands to implement the clean coal-fired power projects. Of the 5000 acres land at Moheshkhali, the government has a target to implement a series of coal-fired projects having capacity to generate 5,320MW of electricity. Besides, the rest 3000MW of electricity will come from Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) fired plant, officials concerned said.

Bangladesh Power Development Board and China Hudian Hong Kong power company on April 29, 2014 signed a deal to set up a 1320MW coal-based power plant at Moheshkhali.

Besides, signing another memorandum of understanding with the Malaysian state-owned Tenega Nasional Berhad (TNB) is under process to set up a 1320MW plant there.

Korea’s largest power producer company Korea Electric Power Corporation has shown interest to set up a mega 1320MW coal-fired power plant at the same site.

The government has already allowed eight projects in private sector to Orion Group, S Alam Group and BSRM Group but project implementation is not satisfactory.

Of 19 coal-fired projects, only 1320MW Bangladesh-India Friendship power at Rampal has so far developed the land, officials said.

The default loans of BASIC Bank growing abnormally fast in the recent months as loans the bank had disbursed through irregularities are getting matured.

In March only, it rose by Tk1,140 crore or more than 80% to stand at Tk2,557 crore from Tk1,417 crore in February as the newly classified loan increased by Tk1,539 crore in March.

Maximum of the loan the bank disbursed violating the rules and without proper documents in the year 2009 to 20012. This resulted in the abnormal growth of the default loans every month, said a senior executive of Bangladesh Bank.

The increasing trend of the classified loan is the continuous effect of earlier loan forgery which has eroded the financial health of the bank gradually, he said.

The amount of new classified loan was Tk217.5 crore in December last and it rose to Tk343.6 crore in January, Tk403.6 crore in February and Tk1,539 crore in March, according to the latest statement (unaudited) BASIC Bank submitted to Bangladesh Bank.

The total classified loan of the bank increased by 99% to Tk2,557 crore in March from Tk1282 crore in December 2013.

The outstanding loan with the top 20 defaulters stood at Tk915 crore in March from Tk880 crore in December, against almost zero recovery from the defaulters.

Bangladesh Bank signed a MoU with the bank to recover its financial health in September last year but the bank could not come out from the sorry state due to drastic increase of classified loans, said a senior executive of Bangladesh Bank.

Moreover, all the financial indicators of the bank became negative day by day due to further irregularities in loan disbursement after signing the MoU.

As a result, the deposit growth fell sharply as the depositors lost confidence on the bank, he said.

The deposit growth of the bank was 58% in July 2013, but came down to 1.65% in December last year. The growth turned negative by 2.49% in January, 0.43% in February and 0.61% in March.

The bank also took the highest advantage of relaxed loan rescheduling rules to reduce the burden of classified loan in December last.

The bank rescheduled classified loan of Tk1,151 crore in December. As a result, the total classified loan of the bank reduced to 11.82% in December from 18.43% in September last year. But the amount of classified loan further rose to 23% in March due to the increasing newly classified loans, according to the Bangladesh Bank data.

News:Dhaka Tribune/27-May-2014

Bangladesh Bank on Monday imposed temporary embargo on three branches of state-

owned BASIC Bank in sanctioning fresh loans after huge irregularities were found in those branches. The irregularities in the Gulshan, Shantinagar and Dilkusha branches already led to removal of the bank’s managing director Faqurul Islam by the central bank on Sunday. The BB in a letter to the acting managing director and chief executive officer of the bank asked not to sanction any fresh loan from the three branches until further notice. The bank’s board of directors gave deputy managing director Fazlus Sobhan additional charge of MD and CEO on Monday. The BASIC Bank scam came to the fore early in 2013 after the BB detected massive irregularities in giving loans. The central bank inspection teams found that the Shantinagar, Dilkusha and Gulshan branches of the state-owned bank gave around Tk 4,000 crore in loans between December 2009 and 2013, mostly by violating banking norms and rules. The BB letter also said that the central bank would take same measures against other branches of the bank if it unearthed similar irregularities. It said that the three branches would have to take approval from the executive committee of the BASIC Bank board to disburse loans which were sanctioned earlier before issuing the central bank letter. The EC committee of the board will give approval to disburse the loan if the concerned clients followed the compliance accurately, the BB letter said. According to the BB inspection reports, the three branches of BASIC Bank gave significant amount of loans to nonexistent companies and approved loans instantly after the clients had opened accounts. Moreover, the bank’s board sanctioned loans even before the branch sent the loan proposal to its headquarters. Of the amount, Tk 1,800 crore was given by the Gulshan branch, and most of the loans were issued without proper scrutiny. The Gulshan branch issued loans of Tk 45 crore to AB Trade Link and another Tk 112 crore to Ma Tex, EFS Enterprise and SPN Enterprise. All the four organisations are nonexistent. The BB inspection reports showed that the amount of loan disbursement at Shantinagar and Dilkusha branches had stood at Tk 1,524 crore and Tk 923.21 crore respectively between 2012 and 2011. Most of the loans of the two branches were disbursed violating the rules and regulation. RK Food Ltd and Nimex Ltd received significant amount of loans from Dilkusha branch without submitting proper documents. The three branches of the bank also sanctioned and disbursed loans in 2013 violating the central bank’s rules and regulations, according to a recent BB report. The Shantinagar branch disbursed Tk 36 crore to Hasib Enterprise and Tk 45 crore to SOS Brothers in early 2013 violating the rules and regulations.

BASIC Bank yesterday appointed a new managing director after the central bank removed Kazi Faqurul Islam from the troubled state bank as MD on Sunday.
BASIC Bank's most senior deputy managing director Fazlus Sobhan has been reassigned as the MD, the bank said in a statement.
A board meeting chaired by Shubhashish Bose, a director of BASIC Bank and vice chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau, took the decision, Ruhul Alam, a deputy managing director of the bank, said.
Bose chaired the meeting in the absence of Chairman Sheikh Abdul Hye Bacchu, who is abroad now.
Meanwhile, some people who identified themselves as BASIC Bank employees posted posters on roadside walls blaming Bacchu and two deputy managing directors for “damaging” the bank, which was considered as one of the best state-owned banks until 2009.After the government appointed little-known Bacchu as its chairman in September 2009, the bank's performance started eroding, a poster reads.
In a statement, BASIC Bank dismissed the allegations in the posters as unfounded. The bank filed a general diary with the Motijheel police. 

 First Security Islami Bank Limited Regional Training Institute, Chittagong organised a workshop on Foreign Exchange for the bank officials.

Mohammad Masum Kamal Bhuiyan, Executive Director of Bangladesh Bank, Chittagong inaugurated the workshop recently, said a press release.