Nobel winner says Bangladesh ‘snatching’ bank from poor

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus on Thursday accused the Bangladesh government of “snatching” control of the Grameen Bank from the poor after it raised its stake in the pioneering micro-lender. In an opinion piece published in all major Bangladeshi dailies, the 2006 Nobel peace prize winner said a proposal by a government commission to break up the bank into smaller units, or wrest majority control, would be disastrous.

“This is nothing but snatching. Please do not try to snatch the poor people's bank out of their hands,” Yunus said, comparing the move to “land-grabbing” from the bank's 8.4 million borrowers. “Let Grameen Bank proceed on its glorious path with the existing law. If the law is replaced as proposed by the Commission, it will lead to a national disaster,” he said.

“Will the Inquiry Commission explain to the people of the country why a bank that operates with its citizens' own money surrender 51 percent or more of its shares to the government, knowing fully well that will be extremely risky, to say the least,” he wrote.

AFP