The second term of his appointment in the bank, allegedly involved in credit scams of Tk4,500 crore, is scheduled to expire on September 9 this year .

Basic Bank Chairman Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachchu 

Basic Bank Chairman Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachchu would be removed before his tenure in the wake of huge financial irregularities in the bank.

The second term of his appointment in the bank, allegedly involved in credit scams of Tk4,500 crore, is scheduled to expire on September 9 this year.

“It can be considered as a punishment due to involvement in the credit scam,” Banking Division Secretary Dr Aslam Alam told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday. He would not say the exact date of the announcement, however. 

He said the removal of the chairman is being done at the directive of Finance Minister AMA Muhith.

      Sources in the Bank and Financial Institutions Division said the bank board will be restructured instead of Bangladesh Bank’s recommendation to remove the board of directors.

The move is, however, getting delayed as the finance minister now busy preparing the budget for the next fiscal year scheduled to be placed on June 5, officials said. The announcement may come soon after the budget, said one of them.

The board of director of the bank has recognised the allegation of huge corruption, sources in the finance division said.

 Shubhashish Bose, Shyam Sunder Sikder, Neelufar Ahmed, Quamrun Naher Ahmed, Md. Anwarul Islam and Anis Ahamad are in the bank’s board.

Sheikh Abdul Hye Bachchu had entered into the deep sea fishing business in 2011 when he has been made chairman of Basic Bank and he spent around Tk150 crore on 11 deep-sea fishing trawlers in less than two years.

Bangladesh Bank investigations detected massive financial irregularities involving around Tk4,500 crore of loans in the bank’s three branches between 2009 and 2013.

The Gulshan branch alone lent more than Tk3,111 crore last year against its deposit of Tk695 crore only. 

The loan-deposit ratio reached to whooping 427%, meaning it has lent Tk427 against a deposit of Tk100.

Troubled BASIC Bank has doubled its branches to 68 in the last five years, but 70% of its business activities are controlled by graft-ridden four branches. Of the four branches, loan activities have recently been suspended in three – Dilkusha, Gulshan and Shantinagar – by the central bank on charges of loan frauds. The fourth one is the bank’s main branch.

The bank had only 32 branches in September 2009 when the incumbent board of directors was appointed by the government.      

The central bank last week fired BASIC Bank Managing Director Kazi Faqurul Islam for presiding over a period of serious irregularities at the state-run bank.