KP govt removes BoK MD

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has removed the Bank of Khyber MD Saiful Islam.

While confirming the bank’s managing director’s sacking, the provincial Information Minister Shaukat Ali Yousafzai said he was removed on the recommendation of the Bank of Khyber’s board of directors. He said the provincial cabinet approved the board of directors’ recommendation and sacked Saiful Islam. Saiful Islam, a senior banker, was appointed the managing director and chief executive officer of the Bank of Khyber, which is owned by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, in late 2018 for a period of three years. However, he was sacked before completing his term apparently due to acute differences. The bank had been without a regular managing director for more than a year when Saiful Islam was finally selected for the job. The position had fallen vacant in October 2017 when the managing director Shamsul Qayyum completed his term. He too had developed differences with the then finance minister Muzaffar Sayyid, who belonged to the Jamaat-i-Islami which was a coalition partner of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the provincial government from 2013-2018. As the KP government failed to find a replacement for Shamsul Qayyum for more than a year, a senior Bank of Khyber executive Mohammad Shahbaz Jameel was given acting charge of the bank’s managing director.

Saiful Islam had more than 40 years of banking experience when he was appointed as managing director of BoK. Prior to that, he was serving as senior executive vice-president (SEVP), chief banking services (operations) group at the noted bank. The KP govt has appointed M Atif Hanif, executive VP and group head Islamic Banking at the Bank of Khyber as the acting managing director of the bank.