Defaulter within

We are shocked to know from a report in this daily, that a general manager of Bangladesh Bank has been found to be a loan defaulter of 11 banks. The irony of the central bank having an employee who has violated the basic rules of taking bank loans while it is trying to tackle the unbridled default culture in the banking sector, cannot be emphasised enough. We are mystified that this errant official could have carried on his unethical practice of abusing his position to secure these loans and then not repaid them without any kind of detection until now. 

The Daily Star report has found that this person has also taken loans amounting to about Tk 1 crore from colleagues on an informal basis. This indicates that people in his workplace were aware of his incorrigible habit of taking money and not repaying it. Why did they not report him?

Whether it is overindulgence of an employee gone astray or negligence to detect such unethical behaviour, the bottom line is that the central bank should have been alerted much earlier that an employee was breaking the most basic conditions of taking a bank loan.

That this man has been found out is good news but we cannot help but wonder whether there are other such corrupt individuals in the central bank's payroll who are misusing their power in a similar way and getting away with it. The central bank must be vigilant of such practices and go hard on individuals found to be violating the very rules they are supposed to enforce on others. If the central bank demands accountability from all other banks, it must do so of its own employees. The image and proper functioning of the central bank is at stake.