Cabinet committee to present report today

BoK scandal

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to present in the provincial assembly on Monday the report of the four-member cabinet committee investigating the allegations and counter-allegations by provincial Finance Minister Muzaffar Sayyid and Managing Director of the Bank of Khyber Shamsul Qayyum against each other, sources said.

The sources told this scribe that the provincial government’s decision to present the report in the provincial legislature would quell the aspersions surrounding the story of the allegations and counter-allegations levelled by the finance minister and the Bank of Khyber (BoK) head and subsequently played up by media since April 14 after the publication of an interview of the finance minister.

The minister in his interview to an English language newspaper said he was not taken into confidence on the Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS) in the bank.

He said in his view this scheme launched by the bank management might go against the interests of the employees.The interview was followed by a BoK advertisement in the newspapers on April 16 accusing the finance minister of misusing the bank’s resources for his political ends.

However, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak promptly took notice of the matter and formed a four-member cabinet committee on April 19 to investigate the matter and submit its findings.

The committee is headed by Senior Minister Irrigation and Social Welfare and Women Empowerment, Sikander Khan Sherpao. Its members included provincial ministers for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi, Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai and Minister for Public Health Engineering Shah Farman. The principal secretary to the chief minister Muhammad Israr Khan is secretary of the committee.

The committee launched a strenuous exercise to probe the matter. It summoned the managing director of the bank and the finance minister to hear their version. It also recorded the statements of two senior journalists and interviewed five employees of the bank who were dismissed for filing a petition against the BoK’s managing director with the provincial Ehtesab Commission.

The source said the committee took longer than the three-day deadline given to it by the chief minister to submit the report and opted to take its time to weigh all aspects of the matter. The chief minister had directed the committee to meet all requirements of justice and hold supreme the interests of the people of the province.

The source added that a number of ways remained under consideration regarding the findings of the committee. The chief minister after consulting the cabinet committee opted to present the report before the provincial legislature so that a decision could be taken in a democratic manner.

Moreover, the source quoted the chief minister as telling his cabinet colleagues that the BoK was established under an act of (Bank of Khyber Act, 1991) of the assembly so the provincial legislature is the custodian of the sole financial institution of the province. The chief minister reportedly said that the provincial assembly is the best forum to take any decision on the report of the cabinet committee and even other matters related to the bank.