MULTAN, Aug 1: Supporting the proposed further privatization of the bank, the Allied Bank Officers Federation has demanded the restoration of annual increments, bonuses, other facilities and promotion of its staff.

Speaking at a press conference here on Thursday, Federation’s president Aziz Ahmed Khan said the ABL was the first financial institution in the country that was bought by its employees. He alleged that since its privatization in 1991 its ‘corrupt’ executives had looted it with both hands.

Mr Khan said the bank’s first two presidents were charged for corruption by the Federal Investigation Agency in their respective tenures. Later, the bank’s vice-president was elevated from back door to head it and he ran the institution as his own empire.

He said the bank president had hatched a conspiracy and advanced a loan of Rs3 billion to a group in Hyderabad to do away with the employees’ ownership. The employees were forced to sell out their shares to that group at the rate of Rs30 per unit, while the president and some of the bank directors managed to make millions of rupees by selling their shares at Rs100 per unit. The State Bank held an inquiry into the matter and found the allegations correct.

He said though three different groups, including one owned by a media tycoon, had bought most of the 51 per cent shares of bank employees yet the officers’ federation got a stay order from high court against the change in the title of the shares. But in the process, he said the ownership structure of the bank had been damaged considerably. Keeping in view the ground realities they had no objection against the complete privatization of the bank provided the interests of the employees be safeguarded, he said.

He, however, stressed transparency in the process of privatization and urged that the bank should be given to a financially sound group having experience in banking.

Mr Khan said as the founder president of the officers’ federation he was dissolving its central body to hold fresh elections so that a true representative body of bank officers could be brought in.

In the meantime, he would be the caretaker president as per the federation constitution and for the time being its central office had been shifted to Multan, he added.