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Bangladesh forms commission to determine Grameen Bank's fate | The Bangladeshi government Wednesday formed a commission to determine a better fate of Grameen Bank after Mohammad Yunus was removed from the post of managing director of the organization last year. The four-member commission has been asked to report to the Bank and Financial Institution Divisions under the Ministry of
Finance in three months, the division announced in a circular Wednesday. According
to the circular, the commission, led by a former finance secretary, will recommend
ways to ensure good governance, transparency and accountability by finding out
weakness and barriers in the organization. The commission was formed barely a
week after the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said her country
does not endorse any action of the Bangladeshi government to "undermine " the
achievements of the Grameen Bank. Before wrapping up her 20- hour Dhaka tour last
month, Hillary also said she had followed the problems stemming from a change
in the management in Grameen Bank. Bangladeshi Finance Minister AMA Muhith later
on brushed aside comments on Grameen Bank by the U.S. secretary of state and claimed
that the bank is performing well after the removal of Mohammad Yunus from the
post of managing director of the organization last year. "The bank did not face
any trouble after removal of Yunus last year." "Hillary's statement on the Grameen
Bank was undue," Muhith told reporters on May 8. Yunus, known to be a family friend
of Hillary and her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, was relieved by
the Bangladesh Bank in March last year from his position as the managing director
of the Grameen Bank, with which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Yunus
lost his final legal battle in May last year against a High Court judgment which
said the micro-credit pioneer's serving as the managing director of the Grameen
Bank since 1999 was illegal as he was then beyond 60 years old. Supporters of
71-year-old Yunus claim that the respected economist, who founded the Grameen
Bank in 1983, is the victim of a political vendetta for his 2007 initiative to
form his own political party, backed by powerful army when the country was under
a state of emergency. Grameen Bank can be traced back to 1976 when microfinance
pioneer of Bangladesh Yunus started his campaign to provide loans to the poor,
who had always been overlooked by the traditional banks, from Jobra village in
the country's southeastern Chittagong . In October 1983, the Grame Bank was transformed
into an independent bank by government legislation. After development for a few
decades, Grame Bank now has 20,000 employees and nearly 10 million borrowers.
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