Huge support for Yunus
Former Irish president Mary Robinson has joined the development
partners, prominent personalities and corporations in vowing to
protect Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus from "politically orchestrated"
attacks.
As many as 50 charities and public figures, including James
Wolfensohn, former World Bank president, Jagdish Sharan Verma, former
Chief Justice of India, and Yeardley Smith, a French born American
actress, on Wednesday said Yunus and Grameen Bank have fallen victim
to a campaign of misinformation, according to a statement of Friends
of Grameen.
Formed on February 11, 2011, Friends of Grameen is a voluntary
association that aims to promote microcredit and social business,
especially the microcredit activities of Grameen Bank and its
affiliates.
Mary Robinson, also former United Nations high commissioner for human
rights, chairs the honorary committee while Maria Nowak, president of
pioneering French microfinance institution ADIE, heads the executive
committee.
Prof Yunus, who shared the Nobel Prize with Grameen Bank in 2006, has
been targeted with increasingly aggressive attacks by the government
as well as his opponents following a Norwegian documentary, released
in December last accusing him and the bank of malpractice.
Grameen Bank denied all the allegations saying the issue had been
amicably settled between the bank and the Norwegian government, one of
its main donors, over a decade ago.
"We are deeply concerned by the ongoing attacks against Professor
Yunus and Grameen Bank, that are politically orchestrated," said
Robinson in the statement.
She said while some micro lenders have become lucrative commercial
enterprises, Yunus and Grameen Bank follow a sustainable model -- with
very transparent and reasonable interest rates -- making the borrowers
owners of the bank.
Grameen Bank lends its clients at 20 percent interest rate, one of the
lowest in Bangladesh where the industry averages between 20 and 30
percent with some charging as high as 45 percent interest rate.
"Because of the importance of such a role model, our duty is to
protect the integrity of Professor Yunus and the independence of
Grameen Bank," said Robinson.
The statement comes after Finance Minister AMA Muhith called for Yunus
to step aside from his position in the bank until the government's
three-month-long probe finishes.
In December last, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accused the Nobel
laureate of treating Grameen Bank as his "personal property" and
claimed the group was "sucking blood from the poor".
There are about 1,200 micro lending organisations in Bangladesh,
catering to over 3 crore clients, who do not have access to formal
banking.
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=174549------------------------------------
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