ISLAMABAD, May 11: Almost all the heads of key operational departments in the Zarai Taraqiati Bank (ZTBL) are on contract, whereas regular employees and even those holding technical degrees have been posted in departments not directly related to their fields.

The ZTBL management has sidelined almost all senior employees of the bank, either by placing them in secondary departments not related with operations or they have been posted outstation.

Incidentally most of the contractual appointments have been made in the banks during the tenure of the present government, although the human resource (HR) department had objection to many inductions.

The HR department of the bank had even objected to the appointment of Roohi R. Khan, the chief operating officer at the ZTBL, on the grounds that she was medically unfit for the job. Besides her credentials made her ineligible for the post, and she did not have any experience for the post.

The HR department has also noted that Ms Khan's previous experience is of a director at a mutual fund. Dawn

The regular employees of the bank while talking to said that the policy of the management was to place contractual employees on key positions, hampering the bank's working.

“Most of these employees do not have relevant qualification and experience and they do not even have any stakes in the ZTBL,” said a senior employee of the bank, adding that the regular employees have to be careful because they face the wrath of audit at the time of retirement but that is not the case with contractual employees.

“For these retired persons working on contract, the ZTBL is like Dubai, where one goes to earn more and has no interest with the state.”

Apart from the COO, even the bank's president, Zaka Ashraf, has faced objections by the State Bank of Pakistan about his ineligibility as the head of the bank.

Senior officials of the central bank had in response to the objections told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance that the decision is the prerogative of the finance ministry.

The objections are that Mr Ashraf has never had any job in any banking or non-banking financial institution; neither does he hold any finance-related education.

Even the in-charge of ZTBL secretariat is a contractual employee and a retired army officer, Brig (retired) Sajid Hameed. He is bagging a salary of Rs200,000 per month.

The Complaints and Investigation (C&I) branch of ZTBL is dominated by the contractual employees — the head of C&I Division is DIG (retired) Ghulam Haider Marth, the departmental head of the C&I, which is equivalent to SVP, is Maj (retired) Anwar Hussain Alvi and the in-charge of C&I Bahawalpur is DSP (retired) Ali Akbar.

The executive vice-president operations, Ashfaq Hussain Qureshi, is a contract employee too and he has achieved the retirement age.

The bank management has even failed to utilise the services of its senior employees in the information technology department and the head of IT division Anis Iqbal has been hired on contract.

The chief of efficiency and discipline department is retired district and sessions judge Riaz Ahmed Chaudhry, the head of credit operations is a retired banker Sanaulah Hanif, the in-charge of protocol is Lt-col (retired) Maqsood Cheema and the in-charge of evaluation of ZTBL employees performance is SVP Lt-Col (retired) Khan Bahadur Aleem, and the head of security at the ZTBL head office – Col (retd) Manzoor Qazi is a contractual employee

Besides the head of the main subsidiary of the ZTBL and its key employees are on contract basis, the managing director of the Kissan Support Services Limited (KSSL) is Brig (retired) Anjum Saeed Akhtar and the in-charge of its administration department – GM in KSSL is Lt-Col(retired) Shahid Rafique.

Spokesman of the ZTBL, Israr Kisana, a contractual employee himself talking to Dawn, said that appointments had been made in view of the requirements faced by the bank.

“All the contractual employees either civilian or retired army personnel have relevant experience and background while the inductions have been made on merit,” he added.