Help realise classified credits

The sate-owned Sonali Bank has sought help of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for realising the bank's classified credits worth Tk 2.579 billion due from different ministries, departments and offices, officials said.

Pradip Kumar Dutta, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the bank, sent a letter to Dr. M Aslam Alam, secretary of the Banks and Financial Institutions Division of the MoF, seeking help in collecting the classified loans, they said.

Different ministries, departments and local offices of the government owe Tk 190.0 billion to the Sonali Bank, as of last May. Of the amount, Tk 59.93 billion and Tk 130.06 billion are funded and non-funded loans respectively, according to the bank statistics.

The bank has long been deprived of desired earning due to a large number of classified loans remaining overdue from different government ministries and offices, said a high official of the sate-run bank, also reeling from alleged forgery of loans amounting to huge sums of money.    

Besides, a large amount of provision has to be preserved against the classified loans. As a result, profit of the bank is decreasing gradually, he said.

"We had given reminder to ministries, departments and offices in respect of repayment of the classified and overdue loans repeatedly. But there has been no development in this regard," he added.

On the other hand, Bangladesh Bank (BB) has expressed dissatisfaction in this regard and the central bank asked the Sonali to take effective measures to realise the classified loans, a BB official said.