The surge in commodity prices in Bangladesh is no longer an economic theory, it is a political reality. While political leaders treat bank loans as survival tools, ordinary citizens bear the cost daily at the market. The price of political borrowing is embedded in the cost of rice, cooking oil, and electricity bills.
According to Bangladesh Bank, non-performing loans in the country's banking sector exceeded over Tk 6.0 trillion by the end of the year 2025. Nearly a quarter of all disbursed loans are now deemed unrecoverable. In state-owned banks, where political influence is strongest, the non-performing loan ratio exceeds 45 per cent. Loans are granted based on party affiliation, not risk assessment.
If a citizen delays installments for two months, banks send notices, file lawsuits, and socially shame them. Yet political leaders defaulting on loans worth thousands of crores face no consequences. Files are "rescheduled," interest waived, repayment terms extended. Many of these loans never entered productive channels, no factories, no jobs, only land purchases, fund laundering and lavish lifestyles. The result: a dollar crisis, restricted imports, shrinking supply, and soaring prices.
When banks weaken under this burden, the state injects billions of taxpayers' money to recapitalise them. Citizens pay taxes, shop for essentials and struggle to survive. Loan-defaulting leaders, meanwhile, contest elections, sit in parliament and lecture on the economy. The message is clear: honesty is foolishness; power is the real qualification.
Thus in Bangladesh, to some extent, bank loans have ceased to be financial instruments; they are political rewards. And the bill for those rewards is carried by ordinary citizens. Simply put: leaders live on loans, citizens die by prices.
Md. Mahin Uddin
Department of Economics
Dhaka College