Irregularities in incentives disbursement of South East Bank
A garment factory called Generation Next Fashion has taken extra money from South East Bank in the name of incentives for workers. The money was taken away by showing more than the previous salary against the worker's account. The matter came up during an inspection of Bangladesh Bank.
The government announced the incentive to pay workers in response to the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in April 2020. The issue came up during the inspection of Bangladesh Bank. The concerned branch managers also agreed with all these irregularities, corruption and errors identified by the inspection team.
The report of Bangladesh Bank mentions the issue of withdrawing more money by mentioning certain mobile phone numbers of the workers. The workers were shown to have received higher wages in March-April than in the corona strike in 2020. South East Bank distributes these incentives to workers under the Mobile Financing Service in accordance with the list and pay structure provided by this garment factory called Generation Next Fashion.
The ready-made garment factory was shut down in March 2020 due to a lockdown caused by the coronavirus. At that time, the government announced an incentive of Tk. 5,000 crore in response to the application of entrepreneurs in the ready-made garment industry. This incentive was later doubled by increasing it in several stages. The government decided to give the workers 'wage incentives directly to the workers' accounts, despite the demand to do so.
And wages were sent to the workers' accounts on the basis of the salary sheets of the previous month. The inspection team of Bangladesh Bank examined the salary sheet of the previous month and found such irregularities. Serious irregularities have also been found in the use of personal credit card of Touhidur Rahman, a senior official of the garment factory. Rajiv Sethi, managing director of Generation Next Fashion Limited, has paid his credit card bill. The said credit card was not used in the work of the institution i.e. in accordance with the notification of the Department of Foreign Exchange Policy.
The inspection team of Bangladesh Bank received an allegation that no action was taken against the officer of the bank accused of forging customer's money. It was necessary to ensure punishment against the offending officer to warn the officers to protect the interests of the customer. So that no officer of any branch neglects any matter related to the interest of any customer. It could also be an example. According to the report of Bangladesh Bank, Tk.15 lakh of the customer's pay order was embezzled at the bank's Rangpur branch without paying the relevant deposit, but no legal action has been taken against the guilty officer so far.