The role of the regulator should be limited to setting rules, inspecting compliance and intervening in a crisis as the lender of last resort.
Instead as MP Dr Harsha de Silva has pointed out the Central Bank is now directly interfering through the EPF in the running of the banks by using hard-earned workers money as their own money to purchase controlling interest in some of the banks. Why did the EPF buy the shares of Laugh Gas at Rs 48 as Dr de Silva says, when the market price was around 40? Is it to happily fill up institutions with government cronies to intervene on their behalf to support the pet projects of the government or is someone doing deals at the expense of the poor workers?
The appointment of a retired deputy governor of the Central Bank as Chairman of a premier private bank is seen as an attempt to indirectly stamp the government seal in this bank. It will be of public interest to know how much this bank contributed towards the hosting of the Commonwealth Games and government projects since her appointment? Successive governments since independence have used the two state banks as pawns to fund their pet projects and virtually gobble up their future.
The way the present Governor of the Central Bank is interfering in the running of the banks as pointed by a recent publication it won’t be short time before the private sector banks becomes an extension of the two state banks and follow their path of destruction and ruin. The public are now concerned about the independence of directors. We have a situation of Ministry Secretaries getting appointed to bank boards. Is this an acceptable ethical practice since ministry secretaries have access to highly classified information?
A recent board appointment made by another commercial bank drew a lot of flak in the media as the person appointed was convicted in a court of law over a timber fraud but the said board however totally ignored the public outrage and did nothing about it.
In the same bank a respected director of the board was forced out. So, please before the banks and the EPF are vandalized, opposition MPs like Eran Wickramarathna and Dr Harsha de Silva must ask for a debate in parliament to inquire into the interference of some of the private sector banks and the way the Central Bank is interfering? Our private sector banks live on public deposits and this is not the private property of the Central Bank. Only public intervention and scrutiny and employees and unions being alert to this dangerous trend can save these banks. Here is an opportunity for the so-called captains of the private sector to be heard and noticed before it is late.
Ranjan Fernando
A bank depositor |
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