Mohammed Yunus is no angel

by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

(March 11, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) In Bangladesh and in several countries in the world, Nobel laureate Dr. Muhammed Yunus’ ouster from the post of chief executive [managing director] of Grameen Bank has become a topic of debate. International media in particular are trying to see this as ‘revenge’ from the ruling party in Bangladesh. On the other hand, while in Bangladeshi media, several controversial issues centering Mohammed Yunus is continuing to be published.

A leading vernacular daily in Dhaka published a photograph showing representatives of Yunus are distributing money to poor women on a city street, for using them in a so-called demonstration demanding reinstating Yunus in the post of managing director of the bank. This of course evidently proves that, Yunus does not enjoy any support inside Grameen Bank for his decade-long autocracy and nepotism as well as for playing with the luck of the poor people of the country.

Much writing has appeared about Grameen Bank since it was enacted into law in 1983 following the transference of the Grameen Bank Project under Bangladesh Bank. However, whilst most writings on Grameen Bank focus on the success or failure of the institution as a vehicle for the alleviation / reduction of poverty for the poor rural people of Bangladesh, little seems to have appeared in these writings about its legal status, its modus operandi as a legal entity, and indeed the internal mechanism by which it is governed, and its relationship with its supervisory and regulatory bodies.

Grameen Bank is a statutory public authority created by the Grameen Bank Ordinance, 1983 [Ordinance No. XLVI of 1983]:

Under Article 152 of the Bangladesh Constitution the term “Statutory public authority” means any authority, corporation or body the activities or the principal activities of which are authorised by any Act, Ordinance, Order or instrument having the force of law in Bangladesh.”

As a public statutory authority, Grameen Bank is an organ/instrument of the State, the term “the State” being defined in Article 152 of the Constitution as including “Parliament, the government and statutory public authorities”.

But, Mohammed Yunus grossly violated this provision and continued to serve as the managing director or chief executive officer of the bank for decades. When the Nobel laureate sensed any possible action from the authorities concerned for his irregularities and series of discrepancies by using the absolute power of being the chief executive of the bank, he wrote an informal letter to the finance minister in Bangladesh [the letter is hand written] seeking his [minister’s] help in making a way for Yunus to leave the post of managing director of the bank, but continue as the chairman of the institution. Yunus even suggested names of some people are the potentian managing director of the bank. Every naïve will even understand that, with Yunus as the chairman of Grameen Bank, any newly appointed managing director would in other words become a mere sycophant. On the other hand, the informal letter from Yunus clearly proves his authoritative attitude in running the ‘bank of the poor’.

Let me put here a number of series irregularities of Muhammed Yunus, which took place during his tenure as the managing director of Grameen Bank.

1. Yunus appointed his own brother, Dr. Mohammad Ibrahim as the Executive Director of the bank, while his another younger brother is given the total responsibility of public relations of the bank. Putting his Grameen Bank is a statutory public authority created by the Grameen Bank Ordinance, 1983 [Ordinance No. XLVI of 1983]:


Under Article 152 of the Bangladesh Constitution the term “Statutory public authority” means any authority, corporation or body the activities or the principal activities of which are authorised by any Act, Ordinance, Order or instrument having the force of law in Bangladesh.”

As a public statutory authority, Grameen Bank is an organ/instrument of the State, the term “the State” being defined in Article 152 of the Constitution as including “Parliament, the government and statutory public authorities”. Setting his own brother in the top most post of the public relations department is to actually safeguard any possible leakage of information of the day-to-day functioning of Grameen Bank, as well to indirectly buy the local media in exchange of heavy advertisement revenue of the ‘bank of the poor’ and its affiliated concerns.

2. In 2006, when a questioned person became the head of the interim government in Bangladesh, Muhammed Yunus expressed his open support towards him. He even gave numerous statements favourable to a dictatorial regime in Bangladesh.

3. In 2007, sensing his sudden rise of importance, after getting the Nobel Prize, Muhammed Yunus expressed his willingness to form a political party [which was supported and patronized by the military controlled interim regime] and continued to give offensive statements against mainstream politicians and political parties in the country. In the same year, Yunus tried to form a political party named NAGIRIK ODHIKAR [Citizen’s Right], which ultimately had to be abandoned, as none of the important people in the society or in the country ever showed interest in joining this rather strange and ridiculed political venture of the Nobel laureate. It is greatly rumoured that, several top army officers [who were behind the bloodless coup on January 11, 2007], were inspiring and patronizing Yunus in forming a political party and entering the politics, thus ultimately pushing the mainstream political parties in Bangladesh to almost extinction.

4. After receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Muhammed Yunus spent significant amount of money from the fund of Grameen Bank and Grameen Phone to cover the luxurious tour of his entire family to Norway, including some of his friends. He even spent significant amount for publicity in print and media to actually further widen his image. A private television channel was paid for broadcasting the Nobel Prize event as well as a subsequent event, where Yunus and members of his family went on the balcony of the hotel to receive greetings from a crowd. It was later revealed that, a section of staffs and workers of Nortel were actually sent by the authorities in front of Yunus’ hotel to pretend to be Norwegian civilians, chanting slogans and applauding him.

5. Grameen Bank is authorised to provide credit and other services to landless persons [poor] in the rural areas. It is not authorised to lend money to any person [or entity] other than the landless persons including Grameen Krishi Foundation, Grameen Motsho Foundation and Bigyan Gonoshikha Kendro as indeed it is not to Packages Corporation which it has done.

But, at the personal initiative of Muhammed Yunus, Grameen Bank has undertaken a Managing Agency on behalf of Packages Corporation Limited [“Packages”], a family enterprise owned by Dr. Yunus’ father, Mr. Dula Meah and his family in which Professor Yunus and his brothers, Abdus Salam and Mohammad Ibrahim are directors. Included under the terms of the Agreement, Grameen Bank and Packages Corporation would share losses on 50- 50 basis, Grameen Bank would have access to the loans taken by Packages Corporation and Grameen bank would lend money to Packages Corporation.

On seeing only fraction of the irregularities of Muhammed Yunus, any sensible person will possibly be able to finally understand, whatever the contributions of this man may be behind the Grameen Bank and his self-styled micro-credit project [with the policy of extracting exorbitant amount of interest from the poor people], Dr. Yunus is no angel at all.