Banks asked to identify loan defaulters to bar them from polls

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The central bank and the finance ministry have asked all banks to identify the loan defaulters and furnish the election officials with relevant information on them so that they could be barred from the upcoming election.

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) sent a circular yesterday asking its Central Information Bureau (CIB) to remain open from 5:00pm Thursday [December 21] till 5:00pm Friday [December 22].

According to the current election schedule, the deadline for submission of nomination papers ends at 5:00pm December 21. After that, the election officials will start scrutinising the papers.

The circular instructed the banks to keep open during that time the departments that maintain and store information on the loan defaulters. The banks also have been requested to preserve and update the information and readily pass on those to deputy commissioners (DC) who act as the returning officers (RO).

The Finance Division has also sent a circular to all banks through the BB last week, asking them to find out the defaulters who might be nominated and send all relevant information on them to the ROs.

The banks failing to provide information on the delinquent borrowers will be held responsible, the finance division circular states.

Those who have failed to keep up the instalments on rescheduled loans and those who have taken out house building loans are also to be considered defaulters.

All branch managers have been ordered to be with the ROs during scrutiny of the nomination papers with all pertinent papers at their disposal.

Banking sources said in the 2001 election, some 300 candidates’ nominations were cancelled because of similar steps taken by the central bank.

But the political big shots defaulting on loans could easily have their cases in this regard stayed by the High Court and later contest the elections. In previous instances, only the independent candidates and those who belonged to small political parties had been disqualified from the polls, said sources.

To prevent recurrence of those practices, the BB has issued a circular last week. It has asked the banks to take strong measures to prevent the loan defaulters from exploiting the legal loopholes to stand for election.

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