March 03, 2007	Saturday	Safar 13, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, March 2: The crisis in the Zari Taraqiati Bank Ltd (ZTBL) took a new turn when its president R. A. Chughtai was shown the door and the Supreme Court has summoned the new chief for comments on the termination of 1,850 staff.

The former president of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), Mansoor Khan, known for making the recent lay off in the SME possible, has taken over as president of ZTBL with the tough job of completing the Asian Development Bank (ADB) sponsored restructuring process before 2008.

Mr Khan on Friday held talks with office-bearers of All Pakistan ZTBL Employees Union and discussed the termination of 1,850 clerical and non-clerical staff announced by the management on Sunday as yet another step towards the implementation of the restructuring process started in 2003.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has sought comments from the ZTBL president on the issue by March 13, after taking action on newspapers and media reports.

Workers have been demonstrating daily and taken virtual control of the ZTBL headquarters at Zero Point Islamabad. They have also been demonstrating in all the 25 zonal offices of the bank.

“This is a success for the union that Mr Chughtai’s term has not been extended and has been shown the exit door, which he deserved for his anti-workers policies,” ZTBL workers union secretary general Mohammad Iqbal Khattak said.

He said the new president had assured them of full support.

But sources said that Mr Chughtai had taken the decision of terminating such a big number of employees just a week before the end of his tenure after facing extreme pressure from some economic advisers to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who wanted ZTBL to meet the ADB requirements for the release of $225 soon.

“Mr Chughtai had no option, but to go ahead with what was directed to him,” a high level official in the finance ministry said.

Mansoor Khan has been assigned the tough job of making the $225milllion ADB funded restructuring process possible.

There would be a lot of meetings between the management and workers union, and Mr Khan would be going to bargain, he added.

“There will be a new game; the game of pressure, and believe me Mansoor Khan will be the winner at the end as he was in the SME,” the official observed.

He said it seemed that the workers of ZTBL would have the same fate as their counterparts in the SME, UBL and other banks that had announced and implemented massive lay offs decisions.

Under the ABD restructuring programme, the management wanted to restructure the ZTBL organisationally, financially and functionally. The plan was to put the bank on a “viable and self-sustained basis to operate on commercial lines”.

The bank had assigned all the non-banking and clerical activities to its subsidiary -- Kissan Support Services Ltd.