Bangladesh govt to take legal action against Muhammmad Yunus

The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting after the government received a report from NBR following its investigation into Yunus' incomes from overseas sources

The Bangladesh government on Monday decided to take legal action against Nobel laureate Muhammmad Yunus, who revolutionised the country's microcredit sector, for alleged "tax exemption without following due procedure".

A decision to this effect was taken at a cabinet meeting after the government received a report from the National Board of Revenue (NBR) following its investigation into Yunus' incomes from overseas sources since August 2 last year.


The NBR report came a year after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered for a fresh probe into Yunus's activities and financial transactions in his later years as the Grameen Bank's managing director.

The Daily Star newspaper reported the government thinks Yunus, while serving as a public servant, obtained tax exemption facility illegally on his income from foreign sources.

"The cabinet also thinks that Yunus breached the Grameen Bank Ordinance by transferring funds from Grameen Bank to Grameen Kalyan, one of its associated organisations, since the microcredit bank can only lend to landless people," Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain was quoted as saying by the Star.

Yunus, however, rubbished the allegations that he benefited from "unlawful income" by receiving foreign currencies in his personal capacity without government permission.

"Professor Yunus' prize monies, speech fees, and sale proceeds of his books published and sold around world have always come to Bangladesh through proper banking channels," the Yunus Centre, the Nobel Laureate's secretariat, said in a statement.

Yunus's protest came a day after the regulatory NBR said he brought home foreign currencies in honorariums, awards and royalties from foreign sources without "government permission" despite being what it called "a government servant" between 2005 and 2011 as the CEO of the Grameen Bank, in which the government has a minor stake.

The NBR, however, said it did not find any evidence that Yunus obtained tax exemption facility illegally on his income from foreign sources as a wage earner but he did not have the government's consent for accepting those foreign awards and money.

According to Bangladesh's tax laws, if a Bangladeshi remits his personal income through formal banking channels, the income is tax-free, a fact also acknowledged by the NBR in its report to the cabinet.

The 73-year old economist, who earned the repute for Bangladesh as the home of micro credit with his experiment of poor men's banking, won the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Grameen in 2006.

Yunus was forced to step down in May 2011 as the managing director of Grameen Bank three decades after he founded it following his protracted dispute with the government after he lost his final court battle to retain the position.