WB chief wants action against bank defaulters

September 13, 2006
2 MIN READ
A
A+
A-

Ken Ohashi

Ken Ohashi (File Photo)
Country director of the World Bank Ken Ohashi has asked the government to take action against the loan defaulters to justify the market economic system in the country.

“The ‘defaulter’ issue is no longer the issue of survival of the banks, but the issue of survival of market system in Nepal,” he said while addressing the banker’s conference in the capital on Tuesday.

Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) had recently publicised that some 57 business houses in the country have defaulted about US$ 357 million. The default loans account a third of the total annual revenues of the country.

“The defaulting of huge bank loans conveys the message that the rich do have access to thousands of dollars and they are free to do anything with that loans, whereas the poor people are deprived of a small amount of credit,” Ohashi said.

“This will ultimately arise the question about the significance of free market system in Nepal,” he added.

“If the government does not address the issue of loan defaulters, it will fail to prove that market economy does justice to all, just as the Maoists claim,” said Ohashi.

The industrialists protested the publication of the names of loan defaulters saying that the NRB did so without consulting them. They have demanded more time to repay the loans since industries were hard hit by the decade-long insurgency.