Transparency: Committee set up to monitor sale of Khyber Bank shares

Employees fear losing their jobs.

PESHAWAR:

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has asked the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to constitute a committee to monitor the sale of 19% of the shares of the Bank of Khyber (BoK).

The court also directed the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Secretary to monitor the entire process to ensure transparency as the BoK was ‘an asset of the province’.

A PHC division bench comprising Chief Justice (CJ) Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth heard a suo motu notice taken upon an application submitted to the PHC’s human right cell by BoK employees. The employees requested the court to halt the bank’s privatisation, fearing that their services would no longer be required. The court converted the application into a writ petition.

During the hearing on Thursday, Athar Minallah, counsel for respondents BoK and the K-P government, denied that the bank was being sold. He said that advertisements misled the bank’s employees and that the selling of 19% of BoK’s shares was according to the statute of the SBP. He added that the process would entirely be conducted under the SBP’s supervision. Minallah also informed the bench that employees should not be worried about any cutbacks taking place during this process.

Counsel for the petitioners, Barrister Bacha, told the bench that the bank was flourishing and has earned Rs690 million over the past 12 months. He said that BoK’s income was far ahead of the annual income of other similar banks, such as Silk Bank, the Bank of Punjab and Samba Bank.

CJ Khan said the court was satisfied with Minallah’s arguments and ordered that the process of selling out the shares be held under observation of the SBP governor and K-P chief secretary.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12^th, 2012.