PESHAWAR, Jan 24: The Habib Bank Officers’ Progressive Association has called upon the HBL management to offer a ‘decent and better golden handshake scheme’ to the 900 senior executives and employees sacked recently.

Association’s president Abdul Qayyum Afridi said at a press conference here on Wednesday that the bank’s management had sent the 900 employees on forced retirement on Jan 13. He said the retirement age for the affected employees had been reduced from 60 to 55 years without offering any benefit for their remaining period of employment. He said post-retirement medical, leave encashment and pension benefits had been cut down substantially, which, he called, great injustice. Mr Afridi termed the forced retirement unconstitutional and illegal.

He said the bank had closed 600 branches, rendering 20,000 employees jobless, since 1997.

He maintained that the privatization of the HBL had put the employment of all its workers at risk.

Mr Afridi accused the top management of misusing the bank’s resources on foreign trips.

He also accused the management of discrimination in promotions. He said that during the 55-year history of the bank, no employees from the NWFP, Balochistan or Kashmir had been promoted to the top slots.

Mr Afridi urged President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to take notice of the acts of the HBL management and provide relief to the employees.