Shamima Chowdhury
Professor Dr. Mohammed Yunus received his Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 and afterwards he floated his political party the ‘Nagorik Shakti’ or People’s Power. But as response was very poor, rather negative, he had to abandon it. But after 18 years of meticulous design, he could capture the coveted post of the head of the government of Bangladesh after the students uprising in last August, 2024.
President Jose Ramos-Horta of Timor Leste fought against Indonesia for many years to liberate his country. With the help of the Western world, he was successful to achieve independence. He was awarded Nobel Peace Prize for restoring peace in Timor Leste.
Timor Leste was under Japanese occupation. Japan had to withdraw after its defeat in the World War II and then Portugal ruled it till 1975. In 1975, it became a province of Indonesia. Its population is around 1.2 million and nearly 99% are Christians. Its people are poor— nearly 50% lives below the poverty level. Per capita income now is around $1,600 and its annual GDP now is around $2.2 billion.
President Jose Ramos-Horta, a great admirer of USA was impressed by Professor Yunus that his Bank for the Poor, the Grameen Bank could help in reducing poverty in Timor Leste and therefore, he nominated Dr. Yunus for the Nobel Prize. His nomination was supported by US President Bill Clinton and therefore, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Dr. Yunus started his Grameen Bank in 1982. Late Abdul Maal Abdul Muhith was then Finance and Planning Minister of Bangladesh under General Ershad’s military government. Muhith came to know Dr. Yunus in 1971 when he was a PhD student in the Vanderbilt University, USA and he assisted him for few weeks in publishing a Bangladesh Newsletter in Washington DC during our war of liberation.
Dr. Yunus supporters wrongly claim that he is the “father of micro-credit”. Actually, his ‘Grameen small loans without collateral’ was termed as ‘microcredit’ by Americans in 1996 at the 1st Microcredit Conference in Washington DC in which Queen Sofia of Sweden, 1st Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton of USA and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh were the Co-Chairpersons of the Conference. After that conference, Sheikh Hasina asked her UN Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury to promote Grameen Bank concept across nations and a group known as “Friends of Microcredit“ was established at the UN. Since then, microcredit started becoming popular in many countries. Not only that when the Grameen Bank was about to be bankrupt due to severe flood in Bangladesh in 1998, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina provided him nearly $400 million grants. She also provided Dr. Yunus the monopoly rights to use the railway tract connections for his Grameen Telecom. Now he is trying to hang ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for opening fire on unruly demonstrators that burned down many government offices and properties including private properties.
At the microcredit Conference in 1996, Dr. Yunus wanted to be credited as the ‘father of micro-credit’. But the Colombian delegation and also an American delegation strongly opposed it. Colombian delegation argued that they did establish their “Microcredit Bank of Colombia” as early as 1962, twenty years before the Grameen Bank was established. Microcredit Bank of Colombia had over 6,60,000 customers. Americans came up with the story that during the Great Depression in 1930s, American churches started microcredit or advancing small loans to the needy. When Dr. Yunus was at the Vanderbilt University, he came across many Colombian students and on his return to Bangladesh, he started advancing Grameen small loans to a Jubra village lady of Chittagong in 1978. Although he claims that his Grameen Bank is a success story to uplift poor families from poverty, but research shows it otherwise. Dr. Khaliquzzaman of PKSF and other researchers found enough evidence that those who borrowed the Grameen loans at exorbitant interest rates of 27% or more, in fact, ended up in more misery. Many borrowers became destitutes.
The Microcredit Bank of Colombia and Churches of New England did not succeed much as their repayment was relatively poor. Here Dr. Yunus is credited for his three innovations in Microcredit repayment and these are (1) advancing loans mainly to women who are more serious to repayment, (2) his peer group of 5 women that helps better recovery due to peer pressure,(if one fails repayment, others may not get micro loans), and (3) collection of repayment at least each fortnight unlike annually or quarterly. In case of Colombia, the borrowers would go to bank to repay their loans but in case of the Grameen Bank, the agents of the bank would visit the borrower’s home to collect repayments. It is also a fact that Sir F. H. Abed of BRAC started providing small loans to poor people prior to 1978, in fact, as early as 1974. So Dr. Yunus’s claims that he is the ‘father of micro-credit’ was rejected. In Bengal, Poet Ravindranath Tagore and few other zaminders used to provide small loans to their poor subjects or villagers during the British Raj.
Professor Dr. Mohammed Yunus has earned great name and fame and many top awards. But his achievements in reality-check are poor. When he received his Nobel Prize, he assured the world that poverty would end and he said, “it will only be in the museums”. In fact, it has not reduced, rather increased three-fold and now nearly 1.1 billion people are living below the poverty level.
In 2015, the global leadership at the UN adopted 17 SDGs goals including end of hunger and poverty goals. In 2015 Paris Climate Convention adopted its goal to reduce carbon emissions. In 2012, the UN adopted Bangladesh Prime Minister’s “People’s Empowerment: A Piece-centric Development Model” with consensus in which she strongly argued to have gainful employment for all. Professor Dr. Yunus by analyzing all these developments, came up with his “3-Zeros” proposal in 2017 and these are, zero hunger, zero unemployment and zero carbon emissions but without any workable roadmap. He did not mention who would provide this massive funding or technology to achieve his 3-zeros goal. However, he is a visionary. he came up with his vision of “social business”. Unfortunately, his social business is yet to be successful.
Because of his worldwide name and fame, and great PR, student leaders picked him up as the Head of the Interim Government of Bangladesh with high hopes. But although six months have passed, his government totality failed to achieve security and stability or good governance. In fact, a promising economy of Bangladesh, one of the top three fastest growing economies of the world, now facing total lawlessness and anarchy, mob injustice, runaway inflation, staggering unemployment, large scale factory closures, employee lay off, excessive extortion in judiciary, forceful resignation of judges and teachers and faculty, increasing poverty, decline in investment and stock markets, and total frustration and hopelessness. Although he loves media, yet under his administration, freedom of media and press is worse to that of Russian Federation or occupied Palestine. He earned great reputation yet he cheated the Bangladesh government of taka 660 crore taxes and also did not make payments to the ‘Employees Welfare Fund’ of the Grameen Telecom, the Grameen Foundation plus nearly his 53 affiliated companies. However, he paid few crore taka as bribes to a few labor leaders to exonerate him. After becoming head of the Interim Government, his only visible achievement is withdrawal of all verdicts and cases against him and his companies. Not only that, he also got exemption from paying taxes till 2029. However, to compensate this loss of revenue, recently he imposed additional taxes on nearly 100 products and services. The economists think that his policies are shortsighted and will fail. Recently he confessed that he and his advisers are incompetent to run a government. Will he quit before more disasters fall on Bangladesh?
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