MUHAMMAD YUNUS, FOUNDER GRAMEEN BANK: I see it this way. You mentioned the immense profit maximisation and mindless way of following that up with more money, we don't know what happened because of that.

GEORGE NEGUS: Living beyond their means really.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Selfish system because we're not looking at anything else, a single-minded pursuit of maximisation of profit. Everything falls by the wayside, environment goes off, human rights goes off and so on. My issue is I think something went wrong in the design of the whole capitalist system because we took human beings in a way to appear as a money-making machine. So there we developed a concept of business which says profit maximisation is the mission of the business. So anybody who goes into business makes a nice profit. That is part of the Grameen Bank, but is not all the Grameen Bank. That is a part of human beings, that is not whole of human beings. Human beings is much bigger than just being a money-making machine. A human being is a caring human being who shares life with each other, enjoys being appreciated for something and many other things. This why there is charity that's why people go out of their way to help someone in distress. But that is not brought into the image of human beings we see in the capitalist system. And if you want to see, if you want to meet the other part of the human beings, step outside that, step out of the capitalist system. Be a philanthropist be a journalist, or whatever.

GEORGE NEGUS: How do you describe your system?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: I'm saying that in order to appreciate the whole human being into the theory you have to bring in another piece of business. That piece of business is the business to do good to people, not an expectation of money for yourself.

GEORGE NEGUS: Half the world's population still, as I understand it, lives on less than $2 a day, half of that half on less than $1 a day. Obvioulsy the Grameen Bank and the microcredit are doing a fine job but isn't it really a drop in the ocean compared to the extent of poverty? Do you sometimes feel as though it is futile task you have set yourself?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: No, I don't feel in that way. The task is there because it is an accumulated task and we're holding it on our back for a long time. But if you look at the progress, it's very encouraging. Like, for example, poverty is declining in many countries. In Bangladesh it's declining very steadily. We are one nation who are just on the track to achieve the Milennium Development Goals to reduce poverty by half by 2015. In 2006 our figure is 64% of the Grameen Bank borrowers, who have been with the Grameen Bank for five years or more, have got out of poverty. So every day, every week, more and more families are getting out of poverty. So our goal is, the way we set it for ourselves, is to have 100% of the families with the Grameen Bank get out of poverty, 100%, by 2015, while the world is trying to make it to 50%.

GEORGE NEGUS: Why do you think as you've said often, so often, that credit, if you like, being able to borrow money to get yourself out of poverty, the poverty trap or the poverty cycle, is a fundamental human right? I mean, it's a very unusual, a very unique way to describe debt.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: The way I say that because there are many human rights listed in the rights human bill, the right to work, the right to shelter, the right to health, the right to education and all of that. The question is who is going to deliver you the right to food? Is it the government who brings you the food every day? Who is going to give you health? Who is going to give the housing or the right to work to be fulfilled? If you look at the government, forget it, this is not going to happen. The government's responsibility is to make sure that you have the enabling environment where you can earn your money so that you can help yourself.

GEORGE NEGUS: Self help.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Absolutely. Yes. But then that the debt if you leave people alone, and OK you do it alone and they are empty handed. Because the banks shut their doors, they will not give the first dollar open to catch the next dollar. So I said "Why don't you do it that way, establish the credit as the human right and then you have the money to go out and earn their livelihood and earn their living and they will establish the right to food, the right to shelter and all the other rights. I'm not saying it's easy to do, by the way, but it is much easier for them for individuals to help themselves, for individuals to activate themselves and judge their own capacity.

GEORGE NEGUS: Hence no collateral.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Exactly. Because when we give loan we make it very clear this is for income-generating purpose, We don't give loan for comsumption income so every time.. It is capital, so it is not a micro debt in that sense. So they are starting a business this is the money you grow out of.

GEORGE NEGUS: We saw the micro- credit system in operation today we went to Dholla and we saw some women doing it. Why women? Why are you lending 97 per cent of your money to women?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: I started with a big criticism many years back struggling with the banking system to take some money to give it to the poor people. They said it cannot be dark done. I was complaining it is wrong that you were denying money to the people who are neediest who should be the highest priority people for you. You reject them. You are rejecting women. Every single class where the rich and poor it doesn't matter, if she is a woman she does not get it. Your system is tilted. When a woman wants a loan you say bring your husband along. When a man comes in you don't talk about his wife, what is this? So not even one per cent of the borrowers of other banks happen to be women. But nobody, no journalist ever asked why so many men? So I wanted to make 50 per cent in my programme are women. And it was a big task for us because women themselves did not believe it. So it is 50/50. It took us six years to get to that level 50/50. There we saw her money going to the family through women and brought so much more benefit to the family. So we changed our policy and said lets focus on women.

GEORGE NEGUS: So are you saying basically, women are better at handling money than men?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: It is not money it’s the impact in the family. The children get better treated when mother is the income earner, when bank loan comes into the family. She has a better usage of the money so that they can take good care of the money. Very careful. Husbands still makes money but not as careful as the woman.

GEORGE NEGUS: They have been criticisms about the Grameen bank, inevitably it was going to happen because at one stage it was the answer to everybody's prayers, you can do nothing wrong. Now criticisms have arisen about interest rates and ease of access to your funds etc. What do you say to your critics?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Well we have been criticised from the very day we were born the bank said this was crazy, it would never work. The villages say it don't work. Men say you are destroying the religion by giving it to women. Politicians say this is an American conspiracy bringing capitalism in this country. We want to be a socialist country. So everyone has their own angle so this is nothing new for us. You said high interest even the very interest was a critical thing. In a Moslem country you're charging interest to a poor people you should not be charging any interest. So we are used to all this and we have answers to all those questions too. One answer is, if the interest rate is so high and you are so generous, why don’t you go start one and show us you can do better than us. That is the name of the game you have to beat us in the game. They o than sit there and say you are it will interest rate is too high rather than sit there and say your interest rate is too high. And this bank is owned by the borrowers and they decide what the interest rate is. We are just the employees of the bank. So they are on the board and they decide what should be the interest rate so who are you to tell from outside if the interest rate is high or not, when the borrowers, the owners themselves say this is a fair interest rate and this is what we're going to charge also.

GEORGE NEGUS: Will come back to that, I can't talk to you without saying to you, what ever happened to democracy in Bangladesh? Prime Minister is in jail, Marshall, a military-backed interim government. Allegations of gigantic..

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Can I skip this part of politics because it is a very sensitive thing?

GEORGE NEGUS: I understand but I need to ask you because to outsiders..

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: I thought it was clear that we would not talk about Bangladesh politics here.

GEORGE NEGUS: It is hard not to.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: I will say no comment.

GEORGE NEGUS: At all?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: At all, I will stay outside the camera. Because whatever I say it will be interpreted in 10 different ways.

GEORGE NEGUS: Rather than committing on the country's politics. In February this year you said there is no way I can stay away from politics.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: I did not say that, I said I would join politics and start my own political party.

GEORGE NEGUS: I am ready to start the risk if you think me joining politics will help us ushering in a new political climate, why did you change your mind.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: I tried for two months and saw it was probably not a good idea for me to get into, so I stayed out and said it is not a good thing for me.

GEORGE NEGUS: Can you share the reasons with us?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: The reasons, the people that I wanted to be in my core team, they were reluctant to join politics so I find myself alone doing that. And then I see the old politicians gathering around me to be my colleagues. I said look I don't want to be the protector of the new politics. So I thought is a good time for me to say that I am out.

GEORGE NEGUS: A lot of people inside and outside of the Bangladesh saw you as a dream solution.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Well it worked both ways. One group said I was a dream solution. One group said are you crazy doing politics? They will cut you into pieces, you forget it. So we had both worlds.

GEORGE NEGUS: Welcome to the nasty world of politics. Would you ever consider it again?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: No, no, it is done.

GEORGE NEGUS: That is it.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: One shot and it is done.

GEORGE NEGUS: Are you worried about the country?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: No, it is moving very well, the government is actually on the right track, catching the corrupt politicians and preparing for a clean election. Starting with a voter list we never had a voter list and genuine voter list. So using the information technology which will become the basis of that national data base and a future identity card and so on. So absolutely on the track and we have full support behind us.

GEORGE NEGUS: Heading in the right direction. Even though it looks to the outsider as a bit of a heavy handedness.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: No I don’t see any heavy handedness, now if they say that they are looking at it from a different angle.

GEORGE NEGUS: 100,000 people arrested.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Corrupt people, don't you want corrupt people to be in jail? You think there is only 100,000 corrupt people in Bangladesh? It can’t be that these are saints?

GEORGE NEGUS: What is your explanation for the corruption that was endemic in this country, right to the top?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Because the top was corrupt so everyone else became corrupt. That was the reason. The whole system was corrupt. The political system that is why we are in a mess.

GEORGE NEGUS: The sceptical outsider is going to say what would you prefer, the corrupt politics of the past or the undemocratic politics of the present?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: This is a interim government, we will install them, we prayed that we got something, that God saved us. You do not call it undemocratic. If you had a referendum today whether you want this government to continue or politicians to take over, the answer would be very clear, resoundingly clear. Let this government stay, we do not want politicians. So why do you call it undemocratic that way.

GEORGE NEGUS: As a Muslim, you really feel as though there was intervention.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: This has nothing to do with Muslim or anything this is just a constitutional measure for the constitution provides that, nobody violated the constitution. Because we came to a position where almost every party, every politician every single citizen of Bangladesh say, that we are on the verge of a civil well. So this saved us from the bloodshed.

GEORGE NEGUS: So no regrets that you could not find it in you to get involved there.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Oh just I am not good enough to handle of this.

GEORGE NEGUS: What would be your advice, you're gratuitous advice it would have to be, but your advice to the Western world at the moment and its indebtedness and the ease with which people take out loans that they cannot afford, banks lend money that they know people can't repay for stops the crisis in America. Is it possible that in the West we've got to a point where we can't tell the difference between having real wealth and being able to borrow money?

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: When you remain within the money side you forget the real side and what you’ve got, the human side, the actual wealth side, rather than stacks of money, this is going to disappear, this is going to stay there. One solution is you cannot get that until the institutional changes have taken place. As long as our whole mission of business, a mission of running the economy is to profit maximisation then it will not happen. You go to the stock market your eyes will be kind of gleaming. You want to get rich overnight. Which company will make it happen. So you forget that what is your destination, what is it you're looking for in the world. So those realities of life, the mission of life needs to be addressed.

GEORGE NEGUS: You're talking ideology, a word we don't use too often these days. It is a shame isn’t it.

MUHAMMAD YUNUS: It is a shame, because we don’t know, we're so obsessed with just getting a job, making money, buying a car, buying a house. Everything is kind of predefined by what you want to do. I don't have in my own mind what I want to doand what kind of world I would like to be in, and what kind of world I would like to create because I am a creator, I am not just a passenger in this world, just riding, I am the pilot here. Because I am a pilot, I have to find a destination. If I am a passenger and everyone is a passenger and there is no one flying this plane. Someone has to fly this plane, take us somewhere.

GEORGE NEGUS: We’ll leave it there because you are beginning to sound like a politician. Thank you very much.