FROM PAGE b4

“The financial health of ILFSL has been deteriorating since 2016 once Prasanta Kumar Haldar bought huge number of shares to establish control over the company,” Khaled said.

Haldar appointed relatives both at the board and management positions of the NBFI to embezzle money.

He siphoned off Tk 1,600 crore from the NBFI by opening 34 loan accounts in the name of four directors of the lender.

Haldar, who fled the country, is a former managing director of NRB Global Bank and non-bank Reliance Finance.

Khaled also submitted a detailed report on ILFSL to the chief justice.

The embezzled fund was laundered to Canada and some other countries, he said.

Haldar, also known as PK Haldar, is said to be residing in Canada now, according to media reports.

“The depositors’ fund will have to be returned in order to protect the NBFI. And the Anti-Corruption Commission will have to play a major role in recovering the money,” Khaled said.

“It is not possible for me to realise the money. I am now 80 years old and I am not fit enough for the job,” he said.

The veteran banker said he did not get any support from the management of the NBFI and they also created difficulties for him.

The NBFI fared well before 2016 when Mahbub Jamil, a former special assistant to the chief adviser of a caretaker government, was the chairman of the entity.

Defaulted loans at ILFSL stood at around 15 per cent of the outstanding loans of Tk 3,841 crore as of December last year.

“But the actual default loans are much higher than what is shown on papers,” Khaled said.

The central bank also did not take any action when Haldar took over the NBFI. It imposed a credit ceiling of a maximum Tk 1 crore on the NBFI after a large amount of funds had been swindled.

The BB also asked the lender to take prior approval from it for loans exceeding the limit. The NBFI was forced to pay Tk 50 lakh in penalty to the central bank for its inability to keep mandatory cash reserves.

Deposits at the NBFI totaled Tk 2,767 crore as of December, but it has frequently failed to pay back depositors upon the maturity of deposit schemes.

The Supreme Court has upheld a High Court order that banned 20 people, including much-talked Haldar, from leaving the country for allegedly embezzling the fund.

Yesterday, the listed company lost 8.11 per cent on the Dhaka Stock Exchange and was one of the top losers on the bourse. Among the top losers, four were from the financial sector.

The financial sector declined on a day the key index of the premier bourse rebounded snapping a seven-day losing streak.

Khaled was appointed as the managing director of Pubali Bank in 2000 after the lender entered into the problem zone.

“I improved the financial health of the bank within a few years, which has been doing good business. But the case of ILFSL is completely different,” he said.