DHAKA, 16th February, 2011: Muhammad Yunus refused Wednesday to bow to government demands and resign from the bank that won him a Nobel Prize in 2006, writes CNN online.
Yunus pioneered microcredit financing and founded Grameen Bank nearly three decades ago in an effort to alleviate (lette/lindre) poverty by lending to the poor.
– We established Grameen Bank through a special ordinance, with rules that are specific, according to which my current term as managing director is fully valid, The government has three representatives on the board and they have unanimously approved these rules, he said.
Grameen caught the world’s attention by specializing in providing loans to low-income entrepreneurs who were unable to secure money through regular banks.
Bangladeshi Finance Minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith said Yunus was too old to run the bank and should step down. – Normally the retirement age of a bank’s managing director in Bangladesh is 65, and Professor Yunus is now 70, Muhith said.
The pressure stems from allegations in a television documentary that Yunus illegally diverted Grameen money. Grameen denied the charges and Norway, a key bank donor, found no evidence of wrongdoing.
But the larger debate has been over the notion of microcredit itself. Its critics have charged that lenders were making big money off small loans.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina minced no words (lagde ikke fingrene imellem) when she compared Grameen’s operations to “sucking the blood from the poor in the name of alleviating poverty.”
Yunus conceded (erkendte) some lenders have taken advantage of the system. But, he insisted to CNN, that a few bad apples (brådne kar) should not undermine the idea of microcredit.
Muhith said the push for Yunus’ resignation had no link to politics, but many analysts say Yunus is still under fire for criticizing politicians and trying to form his own political party four years ago during an interim, unelected military-backed government. That party was later abandoned.
