Quote:
|
Originally Posted by HereWeGo
And you may be right but a seasoned politician must be careful when making accusations without much to substantiate that accusation against a figure who is a national pride.
Case in point, if Hansie Cronje did not come to the open and claimed of wrong doing I dont think anyone would have put any weight on the Delhi Police claims, just because of the enormous respect that people had for Cronje...
|
Ironically, just such a statement was made by the FM himself
in March 2011 when he said, "They [the United States] said they want us to treat him [Yunus] with respect. We told them that Yunus is the pride of Bangladesh" However, much has changed since that statement was and much more has been gleaned about the history and operation of GB. It has been, for instance, established conclusively by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh that GB is a statutory public authority rather than an NGO or an ordinary Bank given the particular provisions of the
Grameen Bank Ordinance, 1983. (I would encourage everyone to read it, it's in pretty simple English) This casts a long shadow over the entire operations of GB as they have functioned in a manner totally independent of this statute, thus exposing themselves to further litigation. It is from this that all the issues concerning his retirement age, appointment of MDs, creating subsidiaries like Grameen Kalyan, Grameen Fund, etc. arises.
At the same time, the successive Governments of Bangladesh as well as the Bangladesh Bank are at fault for not noting these discrepancies earlier and not undertaking a thorough financial and legal investigation back in the late nineties when the Norwegian Government through their Embassy raised concerns about the arbitrary, unannounced transfer of aid money, in the millions of dollars, from Grameen Bank to Grameen Kalyan.
And then there is the issue of "if its all in the greater good, why not just let these 'legal technicalities' slide?" or "what have these politicians given us, compared to the name and fame garnered by Dr. Yunus?" versus "is micro-credit successful at all in alleviating poverty?" [But more on this another time]
With regard to the particular accusation against Dr. Yunus that he has 'powerful friends', I believe the FM is referring to the close, personal relationship Dr. Yunus has to the Clintons, Richard Branson, Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times, etc as evidenced by the number of sensational articles and statements they've made on his behalf in the global press. At home, he has the weighty support of eminent intellectuals and civil society members like Rehman Sobhan, Dr. Kamal Hossain, etc. He is able to leverage the 'social capital' of this international and domestic support, dovetail it with our long-held belief in his integrity and posit it against our deep distrust of the State and all its weak, decrepit structures. Any investigation of Grameen Bank - which happened in 2011 for the first time since its inception - is thus summarily dismissed as politically motivated and we'll never really know the truth.