Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr Atiur Rahman yesterday warned the financial institutions (FIs) that BB would take the tough legal action against corruption, saying that the FIs or their chief executive officers (CEOs) and directors should not flout the existing rules and regulations even to a minimal extent, reports BSS. "BB would not hesitate to take the highest action against the corrupt CEOs, directors and any other persons who would violate the rules and regulations", Atiur told a meeting with the chiefs of FIs, held at the central bank's headquarters in the capital yesterday. Expressing utter disappointment, the governor told the meeting that the special monitoring team of the central bank found some gross irregularities in few FIs, which posed as major risks to establish good governance in the country's financial sector.
He pointed out that the BB also noticed that some FIs violated the rules and regulations in their operations. These include loans to a former chairman and his wife and daughter and taking loan by the directors under the shadow names of their clients.
Dr Rahman said the central bank already took some effective steps to check the irregular activities by appointing observers at some FIs, but it was the duty to the CEOs to check all irregularities in the FIs. Earlier, the central bank removed a chairman, a CEO and few directors from different FIs and penalised a number of CEOs on ground of carrying out various activities, violating the Financial Institutions Act, 1993.