FinMin orders forensic audit of UCO Bank-BS
( my opinion is given below this news items )
The government has ordered limited forensic audit into some non-performing accounts of Kolkata-based UCO Bank to find out any irregularities, if any, in sanction of loans.
"We have ordered a limited forensic audit after complaints were filed with regards to some accounts. Those accounts have turned non-performing," official sources said. This is the fourth public sector bank (PSB) where forensic audit is being conducted after alleged cash-for-loan scam came to light with the arrest of Syndicate Bank Chairman and Managing Director S K Jain earlier this month. Jain was arrested for allegedly receiving a bribe of Rs 50 lakh to enhance credit limits of Bhushan Steel and Prakash Industries. Forensic audit is being conducted against Dena Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) where some officials were suspected of misappropriating funds worth Rs 436 crore from their fixed deposit customers.
The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the state-run UCO bank stood at Rs 6,346.32 crore at the end of June. In percentage terms it was 4.31 per cent of the total advances. At the same time, net NPA of the bank stood at Rs 3,344.02 crore. The bank sold NPAs worth Rs 1,545 crore during the fourth quarter of 2013-14. This was almost five times the value of bad loans it sold in the previous three months.
Gross NPA of the public sector banks increased from Rs 1,64,462 crore to Rs 2,27,264 crore at the end of March 2014.
Financial Stability Report released by RBI recently said that infrastructure, iron and steel, textiles, mining and aviation services contributed significantly to the level of stressed advances. The share of these five sub-sectors in total advances is the highest for public sector banks. The amount of loan restructured rose more than 11-fold between 2010-11 and 2012-13. At the end of 2010-11, the restructured loans stood at Rs Rs 6,614.40 crore that rose significantly to Rs 76,479.06 crore at the end of 2012-13.
Link Business Standard
My Opinion after reading above mentioned news is as follows:
Regulators like RBI and SEBI and owners lime Government of India were sleeping for decades. They never bothered for what was going on in pubic sector banks. Officials of RBI , Team of Chartered Accountants, Team of vigilance officers and teams of bank's internal auditors mostly used to be victim of bribery and gifting culture extended to these high profile persons when they used to visit their banks for audit , inquiry and inspection.
Post of ED and CMD used to be auctioned in lacs of rupees and these EDs and CMDs then used to promote such culture in their banks. Large scale corruption in loaning , large volume of frauds and lacs of public complains against banks could not pull out these dignitaries from hibernation . All officers who have been assigned the task of protecting banks normaly used to sleep and enjoy. It will not be an exaggeration If one say so.
Draupdi Chirharan used to take place and protecting agencies used to sleep or preach sermons. Banks continued to be looted by bank officials, business men and politicians in nexus with all these regulating agencies who are supposed to be watchdog for banks and who are supposed to be protectors of bank.
I salute Chairman of United Bank who boldly resigned from the post of CMD of United Bank when she found foul game being played in all higher offices and that in her own bank . It is she who scarified the lucrative post of CMD and ignited fire in banking arena. It is she who could speak about volume of NPA in UBI and awakened the officials of RBI and CBI and ministers from their deep slumber and opened the eyes of media pesonnels.
Still there is no doubt to me that all so called big banks are having volume of bad debts concealed and they continue to get blessings from their mentors. It was for the first time that RBI, to get rid of public revolt and media questions ordered forensic audit of United Bank. It is different and Unfortunate that under pressure of senior officials, ministers and politicians , they somehow or the other , again put carpet on findings of forensic audit and just made mockery of word "Forensic Audit" .
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Since then RBI has ordered forensic audit against Allahabad Bank, Syndicate Bank, Dena Bank, Oriental Bank and now against U Co Bank. Very soon they will order forensic audit of Central Bank, Punjab National Bank, State Bank and gradually to all public sector banks. But ultimately perhaps nothing will happen to real culprits.
Because if all culprits are exposed, then they will unite together and call for forensic audit of RBI, Government of India, CVC , CVOs, CAs who used to give good health certificates to all these banks every year despite existence of volume of serious irregularities and deep rooted corruption in almost all banks and in almost all branches.
Not only this they will stop credit growth and puncture dream of GOI of achieving GDP growth of 8 to 10 percent in India. In the past also clever bankers pleaded to keep banks above CVC and CBI and outside the jurisdiction of CVC and CBI. Clever bank officials never accept the ground reality but put entire blame on Global recession and blame the system to hide their evil tasks and they plead so cleverly that no one doubts .
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India is great in culture of certificates and culture of banners and hoardings. Whenever there is any complain from media or public or from customer or shareholders , regulators will ,as a rhetoric and to follow a well established culture issue a letter to the concerned bank and ask for certificate that there is no merit in public complain. When cobra Post exposed fraud in KYC compliance, all these so called protectors flocked together to put carpet on findings of Cobrapost. One can find numerous hoarding in bank speaking about corruption less banking and saying as if "Honesty is really the best policy" for bankers.They as a ritual take oath in every November on Vigilance Day and publicise it in newspapers to earn false name and fame in public domain.
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In the same way , whenever people of India writes against corrupt officials of any bank, a team of corrupt top officials will join together to provide shield to brother trapped and leave no stone unturned to free him from charges of corruption. They will manage all certificates and destroy all files, papers and documents which may harm them in future to prove that charges of corruption against alleged officers are not founded, biased ,false and baseless. This is why none of top officials have ever been punished during last two decades though starting from Harshad Mehta scam several stories of bank scam have come to light It is the culture not only in banks but in all departments of Government that a most corrupt officer or the most inefficient and unskilled officer is entrusted task of investigation whenever pressure comes from above to inquire into charges of corruption levelled against senior officer of the bank.
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Now CBI have boldly come out against corruption in banks ( not against politicians )after getting powers from Supreme Court. It is CBI which has unearthed the story of bribery in Syndicate Bank and then taken action against other banks too. Before that GOI never gave permission to CBI to proceed against any corrupt officer as if banks are free of corruption. The obvious reason is that entire government run by Congress Party and UPA was made of corrupt politicians. And hence action was never taken against any corrupt official or any politician despite so much hue and cry made by Team Anna , Ramdeo Baba and other social wings against Coal scam, CWG scam, 2G scam or several other such serious nature scam. Even in coal scam and 2G scam , the then ruling party never accepted that there was any illegality. They thought it better to order hundreds of inquiry against people associated with Team Anna or Team Ramdeo.
Now Supreme court has proved and accepted that there was no legality in allotment of coal mines. Similarly CBI and Supreme court in coming days will prove that there is hardly any loan ,specially in high value loans which are without game of bribery.Not only role of bribe and gift is behind all corrupt dealings, but role of woman and wine have also played big games.
I had several times written in blog that great Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will prove to be disaster for the country and corruption will never end as long as Congress Party will remain in power. I hope now under NDA government led by Mr. Narendra Modi , level of corruption will come down to a great extent . I am fully confident that Mr. Modi , PM and Mr. Jaitley FM will not provide shield to any corrupt top official and politician and allow CBI to perform without any hurdle and without any fear of action from GOI. I however suggest GOI to put CBI also under surveillance of ROW or IB or CVC or some other powerful agencies.
It is not enough for RBI to order Forensic audit, it is the duty of RBI and GOI to ensure time bound action against all erring officials and all erring politicians who promoted bad culture in banks even if persons like Mr. Chidambram or Mr. Mukejee are found on wrong track and required to be punished for giving illegal orders on phones to various ED and CMDs of banks and other PSUs. Once actions starts pouring on top guns, there is no doubt that corruption in lower level will gradually come down.
Last but not the least , To save banks from disaster ,GOI and RBI will have to stop loan waiver culture . They will have to stop culture of bribery and flattery in recruitment and promotion to strike at the root of all malady. GOI will have to completely separate loan and Charity from each other. Charity game from bank which is basically a lender has damaged the culture of lending and to a great extent responsible for rise in corruption and rise in bad debts in PS banks. Act of loan and act of charity can go together.
I like to reiterate here that case of S K Jain CMD syndicate bank trapped by CBI in bribery is only tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of senior officials who are still away from CBI net . There are several officials who have reached top position only by using wealth, wine and woman. It is proper to point out here that Mr. Jain was trapped by CBI for accepting bribe for sanctioning a loan of Rs.100 crore to Bhusan Steel, a company which got success in getting sanction of loan amounting to Rs.40000 crore by not one or two banks but by 35 banks. Further is not isolated cases of Bhusan Steel only whose Rs.40000 crore is likely to be bad , but there are several such cases which either already turned NPA or are almost on the verge of it.
It is not isolated case of S K Jain whose marks were inflated by Interview panel and who got full marks in Annual appraisal Reports b his appraiser and by reviewing authority despite several cases of irregularities and corruption associated with Mr. Jain as because name of Mr Jain was recommended by some Minister for the post of CMD. In public sector banks . all promotions right from scale I to III or from II to III or from III to IV and so on takes place on the basis of recommendation on officer possesses and on the basis of power of lobby he or she is associated.
There are many trade union leaders in many banks who act as middlemen between Interview panel members and promotion aspirants. Culture of changing marks in Annual Interview marks and giving full marks in Interview is nothing new in banks. This is normal phenomenon in all promotion processes taking place in banks. 'Ye mera admi hai' , 'ye netaji ka admi hai', 'ye GM or DGM sir ka najdiki hai' etc are common terminology which are tagged with flatterer officials and people predict success of such officers in promotion process much before result is out. For higher post, officers use the services of ministers, IT bigwigs,RBI big bosses etc.
Bank management always talk of merit oriented policy but in fact they never give respect to merit. There are hundreds of thousands of officers who have been sidelined like Ashok Khemka by Harayana government. There are many officers who have left taking part in promotion process and decided to lead a peaceful life in remote centres and spend time at corner tables kept for such officers who do not follow the current of corruption. Many officers decide to resign when torture and injustice cross the limit. Frequent transfers of such officers is not new phenomenon in banks as Mr. Ashok Khemka was subjected to by state government in Haryana to keep High command Sonia Happy.
I therefore always say that power of promotion and transfer is the root of bribery and flattery.
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Who is responsible for these Corporate Bad Loans... field level functionaries....AGM/DGM.......ED or CMD?.
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