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The Bangladesh Bank has formed a fact finding committee to investigate role of individuals, including its officials, in irregularities that took place in Bangladesh Industrial Finance Company Ltd.
Besides the irregularities in BIFC, the committee would also scrutinise financial irregularities and scams occurred in other non-bank financial institutions.
BB governor Fazle Kabir approved the five-member committee on Monday and asked it to submit its report within three months.
Allegations were raised against former and serving BB officials of hiding scams in the NBFIs in exchange of bribes, prompting the central bank to form a high-powered committee to investigate the issues, BB executive director and spokesperson Md Serajul Islam told reporters on Wednesday.
The committee would scrutinise the allegations, said Serajul, adding that the central bank would take its next step based on the findings of the committee.
The committee, headed by newly appointed BB deputy governor AKM Sajedur Rahman Khan, has already held a meeting to discuss how the committee could accomplish the task.
BB executive director AKM Fazlul Haque Mia, general managers Md Kabir Ahmed and Md Nurul Amin, and deputy general manager Md Sarwar Hossain are the other members of the committee.
The task of the committee includes pointing out the persons responsible for the financial irregularities and how the issue can be tackled to ensure soundness in the NBFI sector in future.
The committee is designated power to discuss and interrogate officials of the central bank along with officials of other financial intuitions.
In an observation of a High Court judgement by Justice Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar, the court said that officials of the central bank who had been designated to oversee the NBFIs since 2002 must be brought to book.
In the observation, it said that the central bank governor must be alert so that fraudster businesses and cheats could not steal public money with the help of dishonest BB officials.
On February 4, the central bank removed its executive director Md Shah Alam from the charge of two departments following allegations of taking bribes.
A confessional statement given by former International Leasing and Financial Services Limited managing director Rashedul Haque before a Dhaka court on February 3 prompted the central bank to take the move.
Rashedul, considered as a key associate of former NRB Global Bank managing director Proshanto Kumar Halder, gave the confessional statement after a three-day Anti-Corruption Commission interrogation in a case following his arrest on January 24.
Rashedul shared with the ACC names of some BB officials who had allegedly helped PK Halder to embezzle about Tk 3,000 crore from the leasing company.
The ACC official said that Rashedul had informed the investigator that PK Halder had regularly bribed a section of BB officials involved in audit and inspection of non-banking financial institutions.
Along with International Leasing, PK Halder controlled three other NBFIs, including BIFC, and embezzled over Tk 10,000 crore from the entities.
