Angry staff stage Grameen bank lockout

EMPLOYEES of the Purbanchal Grameen Bank (PGB) padlocked the bank’s central office on Sunday. The PGB’s employees have blamed the bank’s board for failing to carry out the necessary research for its merger. The PGB staff staged the protest when the Nepal Rastra Bank has been taking initiations to merge five rural development banks, situated in five developmental regions. A year ago, the central bank had the board directors of the banks sign a memorandum of understanding. The NRB also directed the banks to carry out a due diligence audit of all financial transactions and to conduct an annual general meeting (AGM) within the first week of September. The PGB’s three workers’ unions padlocked the office to protest the banks failure to conduct the AGM within the prescribed time. Ram Dhakal, president of the Congress Allied Nepal Finance Institution’s workers union said they had padlocked the office for an indefinite amount of time. Meanwhile, the CPN-UML allied employees’ union and the UCPN (Maoist) allied union have also expressed their solidarity for the employees move. According to a report, the rest of the rural development banks, except the PGB, have already conducted their AGMs. Dhakal blamed the PGB board for disrupting the merge. “The board has deliberately been delaying the AGM so as to put off the merging plan.” The PGB’s employees have threatened to padlock all of the branch offices, should the board fail to conduct its AGM by next week. The PGB has been operating 31 branches in districts including Morang, Sunsari, Jhapa, Saptari, Siraha and Udayapur. The bank has provided collateral free loans, totaling Rs 9 billion, to over 36,000 deprived women. Of the total loan, it has recovered Rs 8.31 billion. The PGB has been struggling to recover Rs 150 million from the borrowers after the Maoistled government five years ago decided to waive off loans worth Rs 10,000-Rs 30,000 for the borrowers of the Nepal Bank, the Agriculture Development Bank, the Rastriya Banijya Bank and the Small Farmers’ Development Bank. Customers of the PGB have demanded that their loans be waived, and have been refusing to repay liabilities.