Sajjad tipped for Bank of Punjab President

LAHORE- The Punjab government is seriously considering to appoint former senior vice president of the Bank of Punjab as its new President in violation of rules of State Bank of Pakistan. The interviews for this top slot have been completed and successful candidate will assume the office after June 30, sources revealed here on Tuesday.

The acting president of the BoP Sajjad Hussain, reporting earlier to General Manager (Credit, Administration and marketing division) Haroon Aziz (under-arrest) as senior vice president during the previous set-up, is being tipped as the new President of the Bank of Punjab.

Sources in the provincial bureaucracy, further disclosed that seven to eight candidates including the acting president Sajjad Hussain have been interviewed for this top position in the last couple of weeks. The Punjab government in order to attract talent for the top slot also published an advertisement in the national press, seeking applications from interested persons for this post but without mentioning the name of the financial institution.

Last week, out of those eight applicants three candidates were short-listed and interviewed again including the acting president. After the final selection the government will recommend the name of one candidate to the Sate Bank of Pakistan for his clearance and that lucky candidate seems to be the present acting President.

Interestingly, this time the Board of Directors of the Bank of Punjab have been excluded from the selection process and instead top bureaucrats close to Punjab Chief Minister conducted the interviews which again is a violation of rules set by State Bank of Pakistan, sources disclosed.

They further revealed that the Punjab government has already made up its mind to appoint acting president. Forwarding his name to the State Bank of Pakistan will be a mere formality.

Sajjad Hussain, the acting president of the BoP, has never been Executive Vice President of any bank, nor he has working experience of any executive post. In case he gets through the selection process and becomes President, his elevation will remind the appointment of Hamesh Khan as President by the previous government. He too lacked the experience of serving as head of any bank and hardly fulfilled the criteria set by the State Bank.

Sajjad Hussain the former senior vice-president was reporting to the GM Credit, Administration and Marketing Division, headed by Haroon Aziz when Hamesh Khan was the President of the BoP. Now the bank has abolished this section with Haroon Aziz behind the bars on the charges of his involvement in Rs 9 billion fraud and is being interrogated by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Taking advantage of the situation in which the whole cream of the bank was removed that included BoP President Hamesh Khan, Executive Vice Presidents and Vice Presidents and 40 top officials of the bank, the Lady Luck smiled on Sajjad Hussain, the only senior left in the bank to assume the charge of acting president.

The State Bank of Pakistan has formulated "Fit and Proper Criteria" for the Board Members and President/Chief Executive of Micro finance banks, which prescribe the minimum qualification, experience and integrity standards etc.

For President/Chief Executive of MFB: "The President/Chief Executive shall be a person having at least 10 years experience as a senior micro finance practitioner or as a senior banker, preferably below 55 years of age at the time of his appointment. The minimum qualification for President/Chief Executive shall be graduation; the MFBs however are encouraged to engage persons having professional and advanced qualifications in banking, finance, economics, information technology etc. "The President/Chief Executive shall be a professional with sufficient experience as micro finance Specialist or senior banker with no adverse information regarding his/her integrity and performance and his/her appointment, as President/Chief Executive shall be subject to SBP clearance."

The State Bank of Pakistan had reservations about the appointment of Hamesh Khan since he was posted as President BoP on the recommendations of the former Chief Minister Punjab Pervaiz Elahi.

Ironically, the State Bank of Pakistan instead of initiating any action after his appointment, expressed its reservations in this regard after February 18 general elections in which the PML (Q) party of Pervaiz Elahi was defeated very poorly.