Nazrul Islam and Shakhawat Hossain

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  Grameen Bank has a staggering 55 sister concerns, but none of the nine women directors of the trailblazing microcredit organisation found any place in the affiliated entities, the bank insiders said.

The directorship of these concerns was determined only for personalities, including Prof Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, Muyeed Chowdhury and Jafar Ullah, they added.

Fifty organisations, known as non-profit entities under Grameen family, are already in operation and the rest in the pipeline.

An investigation committee, formed early this year, is examining the relations of the deposed chief executive officer with Grameen Bank and its sister concerns.

Muhammad Yunus who won the Noble peace prize jointly with Grameen Bank in 2006 has not considered any of the nine women as worthy for directorship of other ventures.

The insiders said Yunus has been holding chairmanship of more than 40 affiliated bodies, including Grameen Communications, Grameen Trust, Grameen Telecom, Grameen Cybernet Ltd, Grameen Kalyan and Grameen Shakti.

Many of the GB employees were given responsibilities in the affiliated organisations, they further said. Preparation of a list of various subsidiary bodies and other enterprises of Grameen family was one of the major terms of reference of the review committee after alleged fund transfer by GB had raised controversies at home and abroad.

Led by Prof Monwar Uddin Ahmed of economics department of Dhaka University, the probe body was asked to examine the entire gamut of the Grameen issue.

The committee members got baffled with the number of entities as sister concerns of GB sprouting one after another.

They are simply surprised because of the links between Grameen and its sister concern and their complicated nature.

Prof Monwar said the probe committee unearthed interesting clues and tried to make forays into the entities.

He, however, refused to disclose the findings for the sake of further investigation. “All I can say that the findings are surprising.”

The committee was asked to prepare a report with recommendations on the overall situation in respect of control, management, transparency and accountability of GB and consider the possible jurisdiction of the Microcredit Regulatory Authority Act 2006.

GB was established in 1983 under an ordinance as a non-banking financial institution. Its ordinance of 1983 was amended twice — first in 1986 reducing the government’s share from 60 percent to 25 percent and second in 1990 when the managing director’s appointment was transferred from the government to the board of directors.

Muhammad Yunus was made MD for an indefinite period since 2000 which Bangladesh Bank said illegal.

Last week Bangladesh Bank relieved Yunus of MD from the bank.

News: Daily Sun/Bangladesh/06 Mar 2011