| 'Hardly anyone understood what was being said in the documentary' Tom Heinemann, an independent investigative journalist based in Denmark, shot to limelight in Bangladesh and across the world last week, when his television documentary on the pitfalls of micro-credit, Fanget I Mikrogjeld (Caught in Micro-debt), was shown on Norwegian National Television on November 30. In the documentary, Heinemann revealed an incident of irregular fund transfer from Grameen Bank to Grameen Kalyan, which received great attention subsequently in the Bangladeshi media. In this interview, Heinemann clarifies the incident to Faisal Rahman as well as discussing the backdrop for the documentary
When did you decide to make Fanget I Mikrogjeld? Why? In December 2007 - when I was filming and finalising the film, 'A Tower of Promises' - many people and local newspaper articles pointed me to another story, that they said should be investigated further. We took a day off, and went to a village some two hours outside Dhaka. Here we met a woman by the name of Jahanara who told us a heart-breaking story about taking six to seven micro loans from various organisations and banks. She told us that she had sold her house to cover the debts and she told us she took new loans to cover the old ones. This came as a total surprise to us. In the Western world we had been told about how fantastic micro-credit is to the poor, again and again - and we had seen all the 'smiling faces' on the websites and ads from the MFI's/Micro-credit banks. After interviewing Jahanara I personally felt, that we had to investigate this much more. And after meeting other loan takers who had similar problems as Jahanara - I went back to Denmark to finish the critical story on Telenor and Ericsson and how they have their telecom towers made in Bangladesh. After initial research, I presented my idea to Norwegian, Swedish and Danish editors at their broadcasting stations. And when you ask me why I did the story, the answer is both very simple as well as very complex. First of all, we have - as far as I know - only seen documentaries hailing the idea about micro-credit. When I started the research, it was almost impossible to find publications, articles and TVprograms that had a more critical stand, at least not in the mainstream media. But Jahanara's story was an untold story that simply had to be verified by others. As far as we know, 'A Tower of Promises' made headlines in Norway, but the Bangladeshi media were not able to pick on the issue at that time. Can you tell us something more about 'A Tower of Promises'? When I did 'A Tower of Promises', it was one of the harshest criticisms of Telenor ever published in Norway. It came as a shock to the public in Norway that Telenor used contractors working in 100 per cent conflict with the ethical codes of Telenor. Enormous pollution took place at the factories, child workers worked in hazardous conditions, death and accidents occurred at the factories etc. The documentary showed how Ericsson and Telenor, for more than a decade, had neglected to live up to their own code of conduct. Fatal accidents, child labour, hazardous working conditions and environmental disasters are everyday occurrences in their factories in Bangladesh. Thousands of poor workers work for subcontractors to Ericsson and Telenor (two of the largest telecommunication companies in the world). These multinational companies guarantee to the public and their shareholders that the employees and suppliers have to live up to the most basic human rights and environmental standards. 'A Tower Of Promises' documents how these guarantees are nothing more than empty words. Let us get back to the discussion on Caught in Micro-debt. What did you find out about the poor and micro-credit at the end of filming? Can micro-credit programmes be accused of nurturing poverty in the country? A very complex question. However, I do believe that there is another side of coin when it comes to micro-credit and poor people's access to credit. When I look at the United Nations so-called 'Human Development Reports' from e.g. 1990, more than 84 per cent of the population of Bangladesh was below the official poverty line. In 2009, UNDP wrote in a new 'Human Development Report', that the figure was over 80 per cent. I'm asking - after 35 years of micro credit in Bangladesh and with around a 1,000 organisations and banks offering micro loans, there seems to be a discrepancy between the 'smiling faces' and the reality in the many, many villages we visited. The complex thing in the initial research was - and is: poor people also have rights to access to money. Poor people must also get a chance to get out of poverty. If micro credit can help that, fine with me. There is - of course - a lot of people who have gained success with access to loans. However, poor people are also consumers, but they do not enjoy the same rights as most other consumers do. Why shall poor people pay 30-200 per cent in annual interest rate when we can get loans in Denmark down to two to three per cent. Why shall poor people have their tin-sheet roofs pulled off by the loan officers? Does the poor not have any human rights? To me - those were the questions that had to be addressed and being a critical, investigative journalist, it was just to pursue the research - not only in Bangladesh, but also in India and Mexico, where we have filmed. We have been receiving various reactions from the governments of Norway and Bangladesh, Norad, Grameen Bank after the irregularity in handling the fund of Grameen Bank was revealed in your film. What is your feeling about the reactions? The release of the many secret documents that we exposed in the film, is just a part of our story. Our story is about the reality of the poor people and how they deal with micro credit - all over the world. However, we of course knew that the documents were new to the public, and that they told a story, that never had been told before. When the story came out at NRK (Norwegian National Television) I was almost blown away by the response among my colleagues in Bangladesh. In just one week I have participated in numerous interviews in the Bangladeshi media, I have given my response to worldwide media such as the Wall Street Journal, The BBC, Financal Times, The Times, AFP - not to mention the almost uncountable medias from all over the world who will have my comment. To me, it's almost absurd: hardly anyone (sorry Norway) understood what was being said in the documentary. Many have guessed, others have used the situation in a political course. That's not my problem. It's theirs. In our programme we have not mentioned one word about 'misuse of money', nor have we used the 'C-word'. We have revealed a stack of documents - kept far away from the public and the politicians. I find this un-democratic and in spite of the fact that these are 12 year old documents, they tell us another story, than we have been told before. To conclude - there must have been an enormous interest in trying to see the 'Smiling faces' from their back sides. However, when it comes to reacting on the various statements from Norway and Grameen Bank, we have repeatedly asked the same questions again and again. Still - no one has yet answered the fundamental questions: Why did both Norad and Yunus decide to keep the transfer of money a secret? What happened from the time when Norad/Norway/Bangladesh said that the entire 100 million USD should be transferred back to Grameen Bank? Where was the compromise settled? Why was only a third of the money transferred back to Grameen Bank? So far - no one has answered these questions. One thing, that has not been mentioned so far, is the fact that we have repeatedly asked and sent Yunus and the Grameen Bank all our questions. We have done this since June/July 2010, and we had sent the documents for comments. We have sent Yunus the written summaries of all the critical voices that were aired by the many, many poor people we met in Bangladesh. We went to Spain and followed Yunus for an hour - but without any luck. Yunus decided not to talk to us. That's his decision. I can only regret this. Bdnews24.com quoted you on December 10 as saying: 'More than 100 million is not accounted for. We have seen no evidence to show that Grameen Kalyan has returned the rest of the aid funds provided by other countries / institutions, as (Grameen Bank) claim in their statement.' What specific evidence do we lack to find out the whereabouts of the money? As I said, there is a fundamental difference in what Norad says in their report and what Grameen Bank says in their report. What we know is that 170 million NKK was transferred back to Grameen Bank after pressure from Norway/Bangladesh/Norad. The rest, around 438 million NKK is still not - to us - accounted for. This is not saying anything about misuse or anything else. We simply haven't got proper answers. In the Grameen Bank statement it's said that all the money was transferred back. The minister of development in Norway, Solheim says that 170 million NKK was transferred back. Sorry to be harsh, but both can't be right. At least we have not seen any documents proving this. Don't you think it to be unfair of Grameen Kalyan, if they had truly returned the much debated fund to the donors without informing the government of Bangladesh of it, specifically when the allegation of fund diversion involves factors like tax evasion and breach of agreements reached at the national level? It was a breach of the agreement. There is no question about that. Both Bangladesh and Norway agreed on this. That's why the parties use the word 'compromise'. And it was a matter of tax (and I'm not saying evasion). Here is what Yunus said himself today, (according to BDNEWS24:) 'If the fund remains in the bank, I'll have to pay a great amount of tax in the future. That's why Grameen Bank informed Norway that the fund had been transferred.' When national and international media states that 'Norway gives a clean chit to Grameen Bank' it's a very simplistic and factually not right, because: a) Norad tried - and succeeded for 12 years - to cover up their own lack of responsibilities to the tax payers in Norway. b) The so-called 'joint evaluation' from 1999 made by the Norwegian Embassy and Grameen Bank did not include one word about the transfer of money. It was - said the head of the evaluation: 'not a part of the Terms of Reference' (TOR). c) When two parties enter a 'compromise', it's normally understood, that the two parties agrees on what they don't agree on in the first. |
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