Syed Abdul Hamid

The central bank has decided to remove Agrani Bank Managing Director Syed Abdul Hamid for violating rules in granting loans amounting to Tk 792 crore.

Yesterday, Bangladesh Bank Governor Fazle Kabir signed a proposal to this effect, a high official of the central bank said, requesting not to be named.

The official said the letter of Hamid's removal will be sent to Agrani Bank today.

When contacted, BB spokespersons Subhankar Saha and FM Mokammel Huq declined to comment.

Several attempts were made to reach Hamid, but his mobile phone was switched off.

A central bank official said as per the decision, Hamid can not perform any responsibility in any bank for the next two years.

In February, the central bank served a show-cause notice on Hamid for nine counts of irregularities as per the Banking Companies Act.

He replied to the notice but the central bank found the response unsatisfactory. He also had to appear at a BB hearing.

The move against Hamid comes after the central bank's inspections into Agrani's main branch and the Asadganj and Laldighi East branches in Chittagong.

The BB notice said Hamid approved loans for a few clients by violating the directives of the central bank and the board of directors of Agrani. In 2011, a loan of Tk 120 crore was extended to Tanaka Tradecom International from the bank's main branch.

The loan was approved by Agrani's board with the condition that supplementary collateral must be kept as security with the bank.

Tanaka Tradecom later proposed changes to the condition, which Hamid approved without the consent of the board.

Later in 2015, he rescheduled loans of the company amounting to Tk 10.79 crore -- a decision he was not authorised to make.

In another instance of violation, Hamid rescheduled a Tk 42.38 crore fund for Muhib Steel & Ship Recycling Industries that was already classified as bad loan.

Once again, he went above and beyond his authority to do so and without taking the approval of the board.

Not only that, Muhib Steel was given letters of credit facility time and again, which took its total outstanding amount to Agrani to Tk 91.93 crore. The entire amount has now been classified as bad loan.

Serious irregularities were also committed by Hamid when disbursing loans to Mizanur Rahman Mizan, a customer of Agrani's main branch, and various companies linked to the client's Sun Moon Group.

The tenure of Hamid's service was scheduled to end on July 10.

The move to remove Hamid is a second instance of action against the managing director of a state bank.

The BB, for the first time in history, removed BASIC Bank CEO Kazi Faqurul Islam.