Central bank calls emergency meeting over eight banks’ hiring

Central bank has convened an urgent meeting over the eight nationalised banks’ recently-held combined recruitment test.

Bangladesh Bank Governor Fazle Kabir has called for the meeting scheduled at 11:00am on Tuesday at the bank building.

Held on Friday, the recruitment examinations ended in confusion with 6,000 aspirants to take them again on January 20.

Among those asked to attend the emergency meeting are the Bankers’ Selection Committee, which administers the exams, and the chief executives of 14 banks and financial institutions.

Committee Member Secretary Md Mosharraf Hossain Khan, who is also a general manager of the central bank, said the meeting will discuss the issues relating to the test held on January 12.

Bdnews24 said professional recruitment tests for the state-owned banks ended in disarray in two centres after a large number of candidates could not find a place to sit in the centres in Dhaka’s Mirpur.

As the candidates agitated on the street outside the exam halls and damaged the centres to vent their anger, the committee later set January 20 as exam date for the job-seekers who failed to enter the crammed centres.

Asked whether they would cancel the tests, Mosharraf told bdnews24.com, “A problem has arisen and the meeting is to draw up a solution. What will happen can be only said after that meeting.”

The recruitment tests had become uncertain following a court appeal, but a Supreme Court judge ruled that the exam could go ahead, prompting the authorities to hold the tests on Friday. There were 61 exam centres across the city.

In addition to the inadequate number of seats in two centres, some centres received the question papers late, while there was complaint of 'incongruities' in the papers.

The Dhaka University’s management department had been given the responsibilities to conduct the combined entry tests in which over a million job-seekers vied for 7,372 vacant posts in eight banks.