Sonali Bank's management indiscipline

SONALI Bank's profit has plummeted 70 per cent. And why not? If you have a bank where you can swindle out nearly four thousand crore in loans without necessary papers, if you can have a bank's vault broken into and have cyber crooks play havoc with money transfer, it is a wonder that even 30 per cent profit has been made. The Finance Minister has said that the bank needs to improve its internal control and better manage the branches. Our question is shouldn't this have happened much earlier, especially when the Hall-Mark swindle came out?
Sonali Bank has been at the centre of controversy for several years running. The steps taken so far have fallen far short of what is needed to rebuild the bank's reputation. Political influence in selecting its board has been a major bane in its functioning. This problem afflicts all state owned banks and appears to have no solution in sight. Succeeding governments have taken such directorship of banks as a method of rewarding party loyalists, some of whom took these appointments to be an opportunity to do favours for a price. Thus, over the years Sonali Bank became almost a symbol of the indiscipline that became a trait of our state owned banks.
The only good news is that in 2013 Sonali Bank's default loans dropped by nearly 24 per cent and recovery stood at Tk. 4,330 crores which was 511 per cent higher than in 2012.
We urge the finance minister to spare no efforts to streamline the management of this bank and restore strict discipline especially in its running of the branches.