The position will be filled in accordance with Banks (Nationalisation) Act, 1974. According to sources, the two favourite candidates for the position of ZTBL President are Syed Talat Mehmood, President Punjab Co-operative Bank Limited and Salam Khan, Audit Chief ZTBL Islamabad.
According to sources, Federal government has also appointed a new Board of ZTBL as the bank's official business stands virtually paralysed due to the controversy over the previous Board members. Sources said Federal Government was unhappy with the performance of incumbent President ZTBL who had replaced Chaudhry Zaka Ashraf, a PPP stalwart. The ZTBL management has neither complied with the SBP directive nor has it advised its directors or its regulator for the reasons for non-compliance. However, officials in the Finance Ministry appear to be well aware of this controversy and the ensuing disarray in ZTBL's affairs.
This correspondent tried to get the viewpoints of Finance Ministry through Secretary Finance, Dr Waqar Masood and incumbent President ZTBL but both of them could not be reached till the filing of this report. A couple of months ago, ZTBL Board of Directors' 'controversial' Chairman had urged the Federal Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar to change the President of ZTBL immediately, as the sitting President is not convening Board meetings for clearance of half-yearly financial statement of ZTBL, a specialised financial institution known as the backbone of agriculture in the country.
When contacted, Chairman Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security, Syed Muzaffar Shah said the committee recently visited the headquarters of ZTBL and discussed different issues faced by the agriculture community. He maintained the credit line of the bank had not been enhanced for the last 5 years and the committee would recommend to the Finance Minister to enhance bank's credit line so that farmers could access credit. According to him, SBP should also allow ZTBL to start commercial operations to enable it to generate funds for the agriculture sector.