Govt fires 5 BML directors amid card limit hike doubt

Ffive directors appointed by the government to the board of the national bank, Bank of Maldives (BML), including the chairman, have been abruptly sacked on Thursday. With that, the quorum of BML board has been lost.

Reliable sources confirmed to Atoll Times that five board directors of BML have been informed of their dismissal by the Privatisation & Corporatisation Board (PCB) on Thursday. The directors who were sacked are:

All of them were appointed to represent the government on the board of BML during the last MDP government.

Neither the PCB nor BML could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, government-appointed Mohamed Sharah had earlier resigned from the board. With that, a total of six positions on the BML board have become vacant.

A reliable source told Atoll Times that according to the BML charter, the board of directors can be removed from office by a general meeting or an extraordinary general meeting. Previous governments have done the same.

According to him:

"Now  BML is in emergency. The functioning of the board has stopped," he said on condition of anonymity.

With the government's move on Thursday, the BML board now consists only of the CEO, deputy CEO and three appointees on behalf of the common shareholders. They are:

BML has been refusing to implement the cabinet decision to increase the card limit for students abroad from February 1. BML said it is difficult to increase the card limit for transactions abroad due to the dollar shortage.

Due to the dollar crunch, the bank has stopped giving dollars to some TTs. This led to complaints from traders.