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Capital Shortfall Four state banks to get Tk 5,Odder

Rejaul Karim Byron
The government is set to inject Tk 5,000 crore into four state-owned commercial banks to make up for the significant capital shortfall that has alarmed both the World Bank and IMF.
The decision was conveyed to the banks yesterday at a meeting chaired by Finance Minister AMA Muhith and attended by the chairmen and managing directors of state banks, high officials of Bangladesh Bank (BB) and finance ministry's banking division.
"There is already a provision in this year's budget for it," Muhith told the reporters after the meeting.
On June 30, the capital shortfall of Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali banks stood at Tk 9,062 crore, an increase of 357 percent from December 31,2012, according to statistics from the central bank.
A jump in classified loans accounts for the astonishing rise, which has promptedcalls for restructuring of the four banks from both the multilateral lenders.
The capital shortfall in the banks had also prompted the International Monetary Fund to impose a condition: the government will have to recapitalise the banks to help them meet the deficits by the end of the current fiscal year.
Muhith said the banks were directed to meet their remaining shortfall of Tk 4,062 crore by recovering their classified loans.
Also at the meeting, BB Governor Atiur Rahman presented the results of the diagnostic tests conducted last month. The four state banks were found to have performed poorly in terms of asset quality, liquidity management and internal audit and control, in the tests.
Copies of the recently amended Banking Companies Act, which empowers the BB to fire MDs if irregularities were detected at their banks, were distributed among the
FROM PAGE 1 chairmen and MDs.
However, one of the banks' managing directors told The Daily Star that the main problem lies with the politically appointed directors, and BB should have been given the power to remove them as well.
The irregularities recently unearthed at state-
owned BASIC Bank were also discussed at length at the meeting, which was attended by the bank's MD only. It was, therefore, decided that the finance minister will sit with the bank's chairman and managing director together at a later date.
BASIC Bank's capital shortfall on June 30 stood
at Tk 183 crore, remarkably because it was Tk 71 crore in the surplus six months earlier.
The state banks, once again, demanded relaxation of the loan ceiling imposed on them for the year, which was outright rejected.
"In fact, the ceiling will be tightened next month
given the unsatisfactory performance in the diagnostic tests," said a BB official presentatthe meeting.
The lending cap means Sonali Bank's loan portfolio in 2013 cannot increase beyond 8 percent, Janata Bank's 12 percent and Agrani and Rupali's 10 percent. In 2011, the growth was capped at 15 percent.