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NGOS IN MICROLOANS

Younus wants free watchdog

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Grameen Bank Managing Director Muhammad Yunus yesterday demanded a regulatory framework and an independent commission for monitoring microfinancing by nongovernmental organisations (NGOs).
He also suggested the formation of small banks in villages to streamline microfinancing.
Yunus was talking to journalists on the sidelines of the microcredit summit at Dhaka Sheraton Hotel.
"Without any regulatory framework and monitoring system, we cannot assess the actual situation in the microfinance sector," he said, adding no-one knows which NGO disbursed what amount of money.
In such a situation, any person or organisation could cause a serious disaster to the sector anytime through a big financial scandal, he feared.
Noting that although such a scandal did not take place in the past, he said," We cannot predict it will not happen in future. The government should form an independent commission before anything like that happens."
Yunus thought the commission should work like a watchdog and develop a system for continuous monitoring of the activities of microfinanciers. It should not operate under the guidelines of Bangladesh Bank because if it does so, it will cease to be an independent body.
The pioneer of the widely acclaimed Grameen Bank model opposed the idea of compelling the NGOs to reduce the rate of interest.
Yunus thought the government should not take such a decision, rather the market mechanism should determine the rate of interest. The NGOs charging higher interest will not survive in the competitive market, he said.
He also opposed the government's involvement in microfinancing as he fears it might create another section of loan defaulters.
He envisaged a microfinance movement throughout the world as the United Nations has already declared 2005 as the year of microfinance.
He hoped the target to bring 100 million people under the microfinance network by 2005 would be achieved as 55 million people already came under it by 2003.
Yunus said the shares of GrameenPhone would be in the capital market through registration with three stock exchanges simultaneously in Dhaka, New York and Oslo.
On the criticism of the Grameen Bank model on microcredit, he said it was nothing new. "Such criticisms were always there."
A major feature of microcredit is that the poor start dreaming about their future after getting the money and their urge for improving the standards of life gathers momentum, Yunus said, explaining advantages of microfinance.