Mohammad Yunus's Grameen Bank in turmoil Mohammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winning pioneer of "micro-loans" aimed at lifting millions of people out of poverty, is fighting to stop the Bangladesh government seizing control of the Grameen Bank.  In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the man credited with launching the initiative which is now mired in controversy, vowed to resist what he says is a government campaign to force him out. He said he wants to stay at the helm until government ministers agree to preserve the bank's independence and original mission. Professor Yunus was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006 in recognition of his microfinance scheme to give small loans to poor women in particular to help them start new businesses and generate new income for their families. His Grameen Bank now gives more than $1bn (£620m) in loans per year and has more than eight million borrowers. But despite international acclaim, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, he has been attacked in recent months following claims in a documentary that money given in aid by the Norwegian government was switched from his bank to a subsidiary. Norway's aid minister has since cleared Professor Yunus of any wrongdoing, but the Bangladesh government has seized on the claims and ordered its own inquiry. In December last year its prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, said Grameen had been "sucking money out of the people after giving them loans". "There has been no improvement in the lifestyle of the poor so far. They were just used as pawns to get more aid," she said. Since then Professor Yunus has been called to appear in court to answer allegations that cheap vitamin-enriched yoghurts produced with Danone to improve nutrition among the poor were adulterated. More recently, the country's foreign minister, Dipu Moni, claimed in a meeting with diplomats earlier this month that Grameen was not an independent bank but "an organ of the state". Last week, Professor Yunus's supporters said government figures had made three approaches in recent months to demand his resignation from the bank.According to Western diplomats in Dhaka, Professor Yunus is being targeted by the Awami League government because its leader, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, fears the professor's global prestige could lead to a political challenge. It dates, diplomatic sources say, from 2007, when Professor Yunus announced he was launching a political party after an army-backed caretaker administration arrested Sheikh Hasina and her chief opponent, Khaleda Zia, on corruption allegations. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, a long-time supporter of Professor Yunus, is understood to have raised her concerns directly with Sheikh Hasina last month, but so far her intervention, and those of the World Bank and other Western governments, have failed to ease the pressure on him. The moves coincide with growing criticism of micro-finance, in particular in India, where for-profit micro-loans have been linked with the suicides of 80 borrowers and which marks an extraordinary downturn in his fortunes which has baffled Western observers. "He is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a winner of the Congressional Gold Medal and described as the Mother Teresa of Bangladesh," one Western diplomat in Dhaka told The Sunday Telegraph last week. "The fear is that if government takes over, we don't have a history of government organisations running efficiently, because of political control," Professor Yunus said. "When politicians or political leaders get involved in the management of a bank, the goal becomes winning elections and running many things [like corruption]." He said government criticism that Grameen's interest on micro-loans is too high (it is fixed at a maximum of 25pc, 10pc for the cost of the fund plus 15pc) was unfair but that the government could offer better rates through its own state banks. "If they want to run a programme for poor people, they can use one of their own before taking over something already running well," he said. Now, he said, he wants to step down, but he fears the bank would be destabilised.. |
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