Where was the government when the "International Bank" gave loans without any control?
For the past two weeks, Azerbaijani media reports about the detention, arrest and interrogation of a large group of entrepreneurs - borrowers of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA.)
They called the astronomical sums of their debts on loans, billions of dollars. However, the MBA has been silent, and does not deny reports about the volume of bad loans, and how such situation could happens?
Turan agency failed to get comments and answers to these questions in the IBA. The phone of Rauf Agayev, the head of the press service of the IBA did not answer. When being asked to contact with the leadership of the IBA for the control of credit activities, girl answering the phone said she has no right to it.
If the employees of IBA cannot answer questions about the reasons for the problem loans on billion, and where was the government, as the main shareholder of the bank?
Why do members of the Supervisory Board, senior officials, did not control the situation? For example, the chairman of the Supervisory Board is the Deputy Minister of Finance, Azer Bayramov.
Among the members of the Supervisory Board is also Deputy Chairman of the State Committee on Property Rustam Shahbazov, Director of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Finance Halyg Rakhmanov, deputy head of the State Insurance Control Service of Ministry of Finance Mushvig Israfilov, etc. The management of the IBA for many years actually uncontrollably managed the bank.
There was no accountability to minority shareholders, whose number is around 1800. Some of them told Turan, in violation of the law, they were not invited to the meetings of shareholders. Such meetings are held with the participation of all major shareholders 10-15.
51.07% of the shares of the IBA belong to the Ministry of Finance, speaking on behalf of the state. Another 10.11% are owned by non-governmental organizations, and the remaining 38.82% - by individuals.
The scandal surrounding the IBA called by Turan agency “oligarhgate” revealed systemic crisis in the government and regulation of the banking system.
One gets the impression that the former head of the IBA, Jahangir Hajiyev, had carte blanche to dispose of himself and uncontrollably hundreds of millions, and state institutions, obliged to monitor the legality of financial transactions, either resqued, or were at one with the bank's management.
Ordinary citizen who wants to get small loans in AZN 500-1000 must provide a bunch of documents and guarantors. And when mortgage payments delay for 2-3 months, the small borrowers are summoned to courts. -06D-
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