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Government's new banking minister wants to restart Pramuka Bank which has a mountain of dud loans as a State owned bank while investing up to Rs.





5 billion of tax payer money to the industry.



Government's new banking minister wants to restart Pramuka Bank which has a mountain of dud loans as a State owned bank while investing up to Rs. 5 billion of tax payer money to the industry. Wijedasa Rajapakse the new minister in charge of State banks says he doesn't expect money from the budget but plans to tap already profitable State banks for up to 5 billion in equity to bail out Pramuka and set up more State banks.

Mismanaged Pramuka bank went under with a mountain of bad loans three years ago.

The new minister says depositors of Pramuka shouldn’t be penalized for regulatory lapses.

"People have lost confidence in the system to an extent. We want to bring that trust to a higher level," says Rajapakse.

Pramuka bank needs over Rs. 2 billion in an equity injection to restart operations according to an earlier estimate of the Central Bank.

Bad lending practices led to the bank's collapse.

Up to 80 percent of Pramuka's loans were non-performing when the Central Bank interv