Central Bank Chief Addresses Personal Debt Rumours

The Governor of Bangladesh Bank, Md Mostaqur Rahman, has countered public allegations concerning his classification as a loan defaulter. The central bank head clarified his previous private commercial operations during a post-budget press conference held at the Osmani Smriti Auditorium in Dhaka. The media briefing, convened following the formal presentation of the 2026–27 fiscal year national budget, featured a prominent ministerial panel comprising ten ministers, state ministers, and government advisors alongside the regulatory chief.

Responding directly to journalists’ questions regarding his commercial credibility, Governor Rahman stated that he had been forced to contend with these persistent rumours since his initial appointment to the central bank. He specified that the liabilities in question belonged to an environmentally friendly manufacturing facility under his ownership.

Factory Performance and Debt Servicing

The Governor maintained that his enterprise had operated continuously throughout its tenure, sustaining an uninterrupted export cycle. He further emphasized that the manufacturing company had never withheld or delayed the payment of wages to its workforce, nor had it ever applied for or received an institutional loan waiver.

Providing a granular breakdown of the commercial borrowing, Governor Rahman explained that the original credit facility stood at Tk 1.5 billion (150 crore), which was initially drawn down at a borrowing rate of 4 per cent. Subsequent macroeconomic changes caused commercial lending rates to climb significantly, eventually settling between 9 per cent and 11 per cent.

The central bank chief acknowledged that the company had experienced delays in its debt-servicing timeline, attributing the friction to a combination of rising interest rates and systemic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, he confirmed that Tk 1 billion (100 crore) of the total principal debt has already been completely repaid to the relevant financial institutions.

Critical State of the Banking Apparatus

Shifting his focus to the broader economy, Governor Rahman issued a stern disclosure regarding the structural stability of the domestic financial system. He revealed that approximately one-third of the total monetary assets within the country’s banking sector has effectively been stolen or misappropriated through financial crimes.

The Governor concluded by noting that the illicit siphoning of such an immense volume of capital has created an unprecedented institutional crisis. He stated that stabilizing the disrupted banking framework and safeguarding remaining capital reserves will constitute the primary regulatory challenge for Bangladesh Bank in the immediate future.

Summary of Governor’s Private Corporate Loan