Bangladesh's central bank on Wednesday fired Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus from the celebrated microfinance lender he founded, capping months of political pressure for him to quit. Yunus, the talismanic 70-year-old leader of Grameen Bank, earned the enmity of Bangladesh's prime minister Sheikh Hasina four years ago and an increasingly vicious power struggle has since ensued between the company and the government.
Bangladesh Bank said Grameen had failed to seek its prior approval when Yunus was reappointed managing director in 2000, violating one of the statutes of the partly state-owned company. "Professor Muhammad Yunus has been removed from his position as managing director of Grameen Bank," said the order, which was sent to the bank's government-appointed chairman Muzammel Huq.
The edict, seen by AFP, added that "his position and tenure as the managing director of the Grameen Bank is illegal". Huq told AFP that Yunus had been relieved of his duties "with immediate effect". But Grameen, which is 25 percent state-owned, disputed that Yunus had been forced out, saying it had "complied with the law in respect of appointment of the managing director" and Yunus "is accordingly continuing in his office".
The bank pioneered micro-lending in the 1980s in which small amounts of money were lent to mostly poor and rural entrepreneurs, catapulting Yunus to international fame and his Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. "Legally, he is no longer the managing director of Grameen," the prime minister's economic advisor Mashiur Rahman, who sits in the cabinet, told AFP. "There is no scope for him to continue." The country's only Nobel winner has been under intense pressure from the government to quit his post. In February, Finance Minister A.M.A. Muhith asked him to leave and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has disparaged his work.
Previous attempts to force him from the helm have focused on his age, with the government claiming the septuagenarian had exceeded the age limit for holding a directorship and should retire. "I do not think there will be any problem with Yunus's removal - I am sure there will be a smooth transition and the bank will not face any problem," said Huq, who is openly hostile to Yunus.
The famed economist's troubles, which have multiplied in recent weeks, are thought to stem from 2007, when he briefly proposed setting up a political party, irking the powerful Hasina and her political allies. In December, Hasina accused Yunus of treating Grameen Bank as his "personal property" and claimed the group was "sucking blood from the poor".