Bangladesh Govt. asks Muhammad Yunus to give up Grameen Bank post

London, Feb 16 (ANI): The Bangladeshi government has asked Nobel peace laureate and micro credit pioneer Muhammad Yunus to retire as he has reached the normal retirement age for executives at private banks.

The latest comments reflect an increasing divide between the Awami League-led government and Prof Yunus, who set up the Grameen Bank about three decades ago to provide microcredit - small loans to the poor.

Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith told the BBC that the government began talking to Prof Yunus around a year ago about who would succeed him and redefining the bank's role.

Muhith pointed out that according to Bangladeshi rules, the retirement age for executives at private banks had been set at 65 and that Prof Yunus was five years beyond that.

"He should give it to others to continue because you never continue all the time in any institution," Muhith said.

But the minister conceded that retirement rules in Bangladesh had not been imposed for many years.

Grameen Bank came under the spotlight late last year when a Norwegian television documentary alleged that aid money was wrongly transferred to another part of the bank in the mid-1990s.

The bank denied all the charges. Later, the Norwegian government, one of its main donors, gave an all clear to the bank. (ANI)