PESHAWAR: The five-member cabinet committee notified on April 16 and tasked to probe within three days the public spat between the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa finance minister and Bank of Khyber managing director is yet to submit its report to the chief minister.

A source told Dawn that the committee was working on its report and it was likely to take three more days to finalise it. He said that the committee had asked for a large number of documents from the bank which were provided and it was currently scrutinising these documents.

He said that the documents were related to the hiring matters spanning over two years under the current managing director, Shamsul Qayyum. “The record was pretty vast and the members want to go through it for their satisfaction,” he said.

He said that the report was in final stages and would most likely be submitted to the chief minister within next three days.

Shahram Khan Taraki, KP senior minister for health who is a member of the committee, told Dawn that they were working on the report. He said that most of the inquiry was done as they were likely to take at least three days to finalise its recommendations.

About the delay, Mr Tarakai said that they were discussing each and everything and would soon prepare the report.

Another committee member also said that the documents provided by the bank spanned hundreds of pages and careful scrutiny of each and every document led to the delay.

The committee, headed by KP senior minister for social welfare Sikandar Sherpao, includes as its members senior minister for health Shahram Khan Taraki, minister for public health engineering Shah Farman and minister for law and parliamentary affairs Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi.

Principal secretary to the chief minister, Israr Khan, is secretary to the committee.

The Bank of Khyber Officers Association, meanwhile, in a statement expressed its concern over the committee, saying it had turned its focus to investigating publication of an advertisement against the finance minister.

It said that apparently the committee was no longer interested in investigating important issues like the appointment of MD, appointments made under his watch and other alleged irregularities in the bank.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2016