Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A complaint has been filed with the chairman Prime Minister (PM) Inspection Cell Prime Minister secretariat Islamabad against illegal appointments, particularly induction of Zahid Mehmood Chaudhry, as group chief in National Bank of Pakistan (NBP).

One Riaz Ahmad has filed an application with chairman secretariat through Shahanshah Shamil Paracha law firm saying the norms of integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership have been disregarded while making appointments of top officials in the hierarchy of NBP. The appointments were made with the active involvement of a third party. Induction of officials through third parties is tantamount to undermining human resources of the largest nationalised bank of the country. Under banking companies’ ordinance, the ministry of finance is fully authorised to regulate and supervise the banks functioning in the country and NBP as well. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is empowered being a regulator to issue regulations, circulars, and notifications to all banking companies in the country in the public interest.

SBP issued a circular in 2007 under which all appointments of board of directors of a bank, executives and sponsors are required to conform to the requirements laid down in FBT (Fit and Proper Test). Under the bank recruitment policy, only technical staff will be hired from outside merit with the approval of competent authority.

Unfortunately, contractual employees with political background have hijacked the NBP since the last two decades. This state of affairs has sent a wave of disappointment among the regular employees who stand deprived of promotion and elevation to higher positions.

The key posts are held by contractual employees who don’t justify the criterion laid down by SBP. The application said that recently Zahid Mehmood Chaudhry has been recruited by the bank as SEVP/ Group chief, human resources in clear violation of their rules.

NBP advertised the post in Dawn on 28 April 2015, announcing the upper limit of age ranging between 48 to 57 years. Date of birth of Zahid Mehmood is June 12, 1957 and he was over-age at the time when the vacancy was advertised. His age is 57 years, 10 months and 16 days and he could not be considered for this post. Recruitment section overlooked this point which reinforces the apprehensions that his selection was made ahead of advertisement of the post.

Zahid joined NBP on September 9, 2015 when his age was above 57 years. Initially Zahid Chaudhry worked for BCCI which was very notorious for money laundering. When a ban was imposed on this bank, he was working in Japan. The concerned authorities did not take into account this fact while appointing him as group chief. Later, he worked for Askari Commercial Bank where he was asked to leave the bank being no more required because of his bad conduct. This decision was taken by the then president Askari Bank Shahryar Khan. This fact was also ignored by the selection committee. His profile is also not clear after his appointment that in which subject he did his MBA. He did two MBA’s one from Punjab university and other from Preston university. The PM Inspection cell should look into these irregularities and inquiry should be conducted by agencies into the irregularities committed in making these appointments.

Action must be initiated against those behind such illegal appointments as guidelines, policies and mechanisms evolved by Supreme Court and PM office have not been implemented during the process of making appointments.