Janata Bank has finally withdrawn the chief executive officer of its UAE operations on charges of fraud worth nearly $1.3 million.

Shafiqul Islam, the Bank's CEO in the United Arab Emirates, has been withdrawn and asked to report to the Bank's head office in Dhaka on September 1, a senior official said yesterday.

“Ismail Hossain has been appointed as the new CEO to look after the Bank's UAE operations,” said SM Aminur Rahman, managing director of the bank.

The removal and new appointment came at a time when a three-member team headed by a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank is in the UAE to further investigate the fraud related to opening of an LC (letter of credit) in 2010.

State-owned Janata Bank is one of the largest banks in Bangladesh with a network of 860 branches. It has four overseas branches, all in the UAE. The branches are located in Abu Dhabi, Al-Ain, Sharjah and Dubai.

Janata Bank appointed a CEO and branch managers to look after the branches in the UAE.

During a bi-annual inspection in 2011, the central bank detected gross irregularities in the operations of Janata Bank's Dubai branch.

The investigation found that the Bank's Dubai branch opened an unapproved LC worth around $1.30 million (Tk10.54 crore) for M/S Steven Frost LLC, which the bank could not recover.

Later, the central bank wrote to Janata Bank to take action against Shafiqul Islam along with Abdul Momen, manager of Dubai branch, and Mohammad Shahbuddin, an officer at the same branch.

But the Bank failed to take action against any of the officials charged with the irregularities. The finance ministry also asked Janata to punish the officials.

“We cannot take action keeping the CEO there,” said Rahman. “There was a possibility of damage to our business reputation,” he said.

“Now the CEO is withdrawn and we will go for action against him,” said the Janata Bank boss.

News: Daily Star/Bangladesh/27-Aug-12