5 banks wrote off Rs 65bn in eight years: Rana Sana

Author: Kashif Hussain

LAHORE: Admitting writing off a huge principal amount and a heavy mark-up to the tune of Rs 65 billion from five banks, including the Bank of Punjab (BOP), Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said that such concessions had been given to “regulate recovery of loans”.

The law minister said that no one political figure of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was included in the BoP’s list of 167 people who had got written off their loans, but a brother of MNA Pervez Malik and family members of Khizar Hayat Tarar are enrolled in it, and both have paid their principle amount and just got concession in the mark-up.

He was replying to an adjournment motion tabled by Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Mehmoodur Rashid during Friday session.

Talking to media, the opposition leader said that from July 2008 to June 2016, loans worth Rs 1.58 billion taken by the relatives of blue-eyed politicians of the PML-N had been written off by the BoP.

He condemned the government for writing off loans, saying that it had inflicted heavy losses to the national exchequer.

Rana Sanaullah said that he had balance sheets of five banks of the last eight years according to which Rs 30 billion were written off under the head of principle amount and Rs 35 billion under the head of mark-up to regulate loans’ recovery. “And, the amount of concession from the BoP to its debtors was lower than any other bank, he added.

He said the claim of opposition was not according to facts, as only five people were given concession by the BoP in principle amount which is not more than Rs 100 million, while total amount of mark-up stood at Rs 1.48 billion.

In a veiled reference of the PTI’s leader and business tycoon, Jehangir Tareen, he said Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif would recover the people’s looted money from the “PTI’s ATM”, who had provided a helicopter to his party leaders. The opposition leader tried to neutralise allegations levelled by the law minister but the speaker did not allow him to talk prompting opposition benches, including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) to chant slogans against the chair. The opposition leader also tore up the copy of the agenda copy.

Later, the Speaker announced to take up the government business but due to strong protest by the opposition who pointed lack of quorum, the speaker adjourned the session until Monday.