Finance body to look into alleged BoP share manipulation issue

ISLAMABAD: The Senate committee on finance, revenue, economic affairs, statistics and privatisation on Tuesday decided to take up the issue of alleged planned manipulation and inside trading in the Bank of Punjab during the upcoming meeting, likely in the end of the month.

Shareholders of the Bank of Punjab informed the committee that planned manipulation was made in the selling of shares, which affected the shareholders of BoP from all across the country.

The committee decided to hold a meeting on the issue. The meeting would be attended by representatives of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Bank of Punjab and shareholders.

The purpose of the meeting is to reach to conclusion whether there has been any such move in the bank as alleged by the shareholders. The SBP informed the meeting that insider trading issue could be dealt by the SECP in accordance with the relevant law.

Meanwhile, the committee withdrew a private member bill to amend the Financial Institutions (Recovery of Finance) Ordinance 2001 {The Financial Institutions (Recovery of Finances) (Amendment) Bill 2017} introduced by Senator Muhammad Azam Khan Swati.

The State Bank of Pakistan representative said the amendments had already been made in the bill in 2016. The committee expressed displeasure that over the lack of coordination, as five meetings of the committee were held on the issue and nobody informed the committee that the amendment had already been made during 2016.

The committee deferred the private member's bill to further amend the protection of Economic Reforms Act 1992 (The Protection of Economic Reforms) (Amendment) bill 2016. It decided that it would forward recommendations regarding the bill to the Finance Division and when the Finance Division introduces its own bill, the private bill would be withdrawn.