Kathmandu: The prestige and the very popularity of country’s oldest bank, Nepal Bank Limited, has suddenly touched a new low ever since the bank started its operation almost five decades ago.

The board of directors of the bank themselves confide that they fail to understand as to what is happening inside the bank or for that matter how the bank is operating since the Irish management took up the affairs of the said bank. According to them, it is the Irish people and their Nepali subordinates who dictate the matters regarding the affairs of the bank.

“Albeit we come to know about the ongoing affairs of the bank only after a fortnight or so”, say the men housed in the governing board of the bank.

The manner Piyush Bahadur Amatya, a very serious industrialist and a top-class Hotelier was presented before the CIAA authority last week at the instigation of the bank itself has raised doubts over the visibly “biased” functioning of the Irish management.

Sources connected with the banking sector in Kathmandu say that the bank management should have pushed the names of those “defaulters” to the CIAA for proper interrogation who owe astronomical amounts of the bank and apparently exhibit their neglect in paying even the interests incurred on the principal amount.

“The Irish management has committed a crime by penalizing Piyush Amatya who has exhibited his willingness for the payment of the loans he drew from the bank and invested in one of the best hotels in South Asia—The Fulbari Resort, Pokhara.

The Chairman of the Nepal Bank, Mr. Bharat Karki was tight lipped in this case but then yet said that he came to know about Amatya being penalized by the CIAA under the direction of the bank itself much later. So say his other colleagues.

Talking to this scribe, Piyush Amatya revealed that he has appealed the bank authorities to grant him some more time for the repayment of the loans. According to Amatya, the Irish management also possessed positive views on his plea that he be allowed some time to settle the financial transactions.

What is surprising here is that how come the Irish management could act doubly: listening to Amatya’s plea positively and then suddenly pressing the CIAA to gag Amatya?

Questions are being raised as to which force on Nepali earth could have seduced the Irish people to go in for a chase of Mr. Amatya?

It would be advisable to the Irish management to forward the very good names of those SHARKS to the CIAA for interrogation who have practically looted the treasury of the Nepal Bank in the past and also appear not to be in a mood to repay the loans come what may. If the new management could do so would mean that the Irish people now looking into the affairs of the bank mean business.

Penalizing one of the most serious, clean and dedicated entrepreneur of the sort of Mr. Amatya will only contribute in damaging the ever down going prestige of the bank specially after the new management took over.

Needless to say, the entire business community in Kathmandu have not taken this episode in a pleasant mood.

The terror must stop.