The approval came from the Cabinet meeting held at the Cabinet Room of the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban with Prime Minister Sheikh in the chair.
“It has taken initiative to abolish the proviso, related to the age ceiling for the governor of Bangladesh Bank, in the clause-5 of the Article 10 of the Bangladesh Bank Order 1972 for the public interest,” said Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam at a press briefing after the meeting.
According to the Bangladesh Bank Order 1972, no person can remain in the governor post after the age of 65 years, he said.
Since the 65-year age ceiling is fixed, it is not possible to consider many qualified candidates for the post of governor, despite their having relevant expertise and experiences in the financial sector. And it is not even possible to reappoint someone who may have been serving in that position, and doing so with distinction, once he or she crossed the age of 65.
The exact same proviso in the Grameen Bank Ordinance, that had parts written into it from the BB Act and birthed the pioneering microfinance institute (it was recently converted into an Act of Parliament), was even used to remove the man acknowledged globally as the pathfinder in the field of microfinance, Muhammad Yunus, from the bank he founded and built into a Nobel Laureate, alongside himself.
Possibly no other case need be cited, for the country to be convinced of the proviso’s tendency to be misused or unhelpful. There is no maximum age limit for the central bank governor’s post in our neighbouring countries, the Cabinet Secretary further said, specifically mentioning India and Sri Lanka.