Government wants to loot economy through new banking law, says BNP

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has come down hard on the government for amending the banking law.

As per the draft law provisionally approved by the Cabinet on Monday, commercial bank directors can be in office for nine straight years. The law currently allows them tostay in office for six years in two terms.

It allows no more than two members of a family to be on the board of directors but the amended law allows four.

BNP leader Fakhrul said the law was amended in an attempt to “loot the economy.”

“They are grabbing all banks. Now there will be four members from their families and they will loot the economy through this banking system,” he said at Diploma Engineers Institution Auditorium in Dhaka on Monday.

“The banking system and the economy as a whole are in shambles now.”

Fakhrul agreed with Chief Justice SK Sinha who recently saidthat the judiciary was not independent. “What he said is true, the judiciary is not free from the influence of administration and government,” he said.

Chief Justice Sinha recently expressed resentment about the government not issuing a gazette clarifying the service rules for lower court judges.

“The government is running parliament with a so-called opposition where they do not need to explain themselves to anyone,” Fakhrul alleged.

“This is utterly an autocratic rule and this is why probably our prime minister is in good terms with autocrat Ershad,” said the senior BNP leader.

BNP’s Dhaka unit (north) President MA Quaiyum, who is accused over murder of Italian national Ceaser Tavella, joined the talk via telephone from Malaysia.

The government has trapped Quaiyum for political gains, Fakhrul said.