Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The Bangladesh Bank (BB) has detected involvement of the top management and directors of the Sonali Bank Ltd in the financial irregularities, in which companies, including Hallmark Group, swindled BDT 35.47 billion out of the bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch in Dhaka.
Recommending reconstitution of the board of directors of the country’s largest sate-owned commercial bank, the central bank said that the Sonali Bank directors had failed miserably to protect the interest of depositors.
BB Governor Atiur Rahman sent a letter to Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Monday containing findings of its probe report on the scam for immediate action.
The BB probe report said the money had been swindled by some companies, including Hallmark Group, in connivance with the senior management staff of the bank. It also identified monitoring failure of the board of directors of the country’s largest state-owned commercial bank which aided swindle of the money.
A total of BDT 35.47 billion has been misappropriated from the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of the Sonali Bank through forgery. Of the amount, the Hallmark Group alone managed to embezzle BDT 26.86 billion.
In the probe report the central bank has also detected financial irregularities in two other branches of the bank – at Gulshan and at Agargaon in the capital Dhaka.
“It’s not believable that the money has been swindled without knowledge of the officials working at different stages of the bank management,” the central bank said, terming the nature of the financial irregularities grave.
“It has been proved beyond doubt that embezzlement of the large amount of money has taken place with full knowledge of the top management of the bank,” it noted.
Two-page report also said the all three financial scams have cast an adverse impact on the state-owned commercial bank as well as the country’s entire banking sector.
The central bank also said such scam could take place because of lax monitoring, poor risk management, faulty and inadequate internal control system at the Sonali Bank.
The responsibility for the irregularities lies with the board of directors of the bank as the board has utterly failed to carry out their duties in line with the bank’s memorandum of articles, it added.
The finance minister has reviewed the overall situation at the Sonali Bank in a meeting with its Chairman Quazi Baharul Islam at his Secretariat office on Monday, the ministry officials said.
BBN/SSR/AD-28Aug12-11:10 am (BST)
