Businesses in trouble as CPA bans transactions with nine banks

CHATTOGRAM, Sept 02: The Chittagong Port Authority's (CPA) decision not to accept payment orders of nine banks, including seven that were controlled by S. Alam Group, has put thousands of businessmen and industrialists in great trouble.
Sources said the CPA has not been accepting pay-orders or cheques issued by the nine banks.
An order was issued on Thursday by Chief Finance and Accounts Officer of CPA Mohammad Abdus Shakur in this regard. The CPA is not being able to withdraw various deposits including previous term deposits from these banks. As a result, all types of transactions have been cancelled with these banks.
The nine banks are Global Islami Bank PLC, Union Bank PLC, Bangladesh Commerce Bank PLC, Islami Bank Bangladesh PLC, First Security Islami Bank PLC, Social Islami Bank PLC, Padma Bank PLC, National Bank PLC and ICB Islami Bank PLC.
According to port sources, the customers of the said nine banks are not being able to pay the duty-tax online for quite some time. The pay orders of the said nine banks are also not being accepted by shipping agencies. As a result, importers and exporters are in great trouble.
Many businessmen and industrialists facing non-acceptance of bank pay orders while making payments against various dues, including ship and container rent, demurrage. A good number of businessmen and industrialists and also exporters and importers have been making transactions with these banks. Many of them do not have accounts with other banks.
Some importers said that when they submitted pay-orders from these banks, the CPA and shipping agencies were not accepting them. So, they were not able to clear their invoice after solving all the activities including the customs clearance of the products. They alleged that many of their products remained stuck inside the port.
They said that it was not possible to withdraw enough cash from the banks. Besides, they could not transfer the money to other accounts from these banks. They had money in the banks, but they could not use the deposited money.
A businessman said, "We pay customs duty online from our own bank account through pay order and real time gross settlement (RTGS). In this process various charges and tariffs including shipping bill, port demurrage are paid. But the customers of the nine banks which are in a poor condition financially are not able to pay customs duty online. It is also not possible to make RTGS from these bank accounts."
Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) President Omar Hajjaz said, "CCCI withdrew all money from the said nine banks earlier. Businessmen who deposited money with the nine banks should withdraw the money and settle the matters with banks for releasing the pay-orders."
S M Nurul Haque, former Senior Vice President of CCCI, said that businessmen were suffering a lot. He said, "Bangladesh Bank gave the said nine banks permission for banking and exporters and importers and also people are banking with these banks. So, the government's intervention should be there to solve the crisis."
Bangladesh Bank issued a notification on August 16 last regarding some banks. In the notification Bangladesh Bank limited the loan disbursement activities of Islami Bank Bangladesh, First Security Islami Bank, Bangladesh Commerce Bank, Union Bank, Bangladesh Social Islami Bank and Global Islami Bank and prohibited opening of letters of credit (LC) with these banks. Earlier, the same limit was fixed in the case of National Bank.

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