While deploring high mark-up on agriculture loans, National Assembly's Standing Committee on Finance, has approved a resolution unanimously requesting the government to reduce the mark-up on agriculture loans to single digit. A meeting of the Finance committee presided over by Qaiser Ahmad Sheik discussed the issue in details and approved resolution, however, PTI member Asad Umar said this was a futile exercise because the government would not take it seriously.
The members of the committee stated that when the SBP policy rate was below 6 percent, the average mark-up on agriculture loans was as high as to 13.5 percent. The meeting was informed that average lending rate of major commercial banks was around 13 percent while ZTBL rate was around 14 percent. Members of the committee also proposed that mark-up ratio on agriculture lending should be made comparable to the industrial loans.
The Committee was briefed by the President, ZTBL and CFO regarding actions taken by the Bank for suitable reduction in high mark-up rates on the loans of agriculture sector along with their regional comparison. President, ZTBL informed the Committee that currently ZTBL was dealing about five hundred thousand customers by providing microfinance.
He said that ZTBL was also paying 7.5 percent interest to SBP, which was the major cause for higher mark-up ratio on agriculture sector. The Committee was informed by the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) ZTBL with regard to revamp strategy of government for ZTBL. He said that a dedicated team was working for making the institution as technology based organisation under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance. He said that agri bonds would also be introduced in the market and retail functioning of the Bank may be initiated shortly. He further informed that ZTBL will install ATMs for their customers/farmers.
The meeting also expressed displeasure on the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and directed it to submit report on Bangladesh operation of National Bank of Pakistan within one week.
Director General NAB informed the Committee about the inquiry status with regard to NBP Bangladesh scam and stated that NAB has completed his work for launching reference against the accused. However, its final approval was awaited from the executive board and Chairman NAB.
He added that NAB would be able to register the references in the court after two weeks. The Committee expressed its displeasure on the slow performance of NAB. The Committee was of the view that NAB has already taken lot of time for preparing the references.
On a petition regarding NBP pensioners for periodical increase in pension, the meeting was informed that by the petitioners that since for the last 7 years, NBP has increased only 3 percent in 2012 against the government increase in pensions by approximately 15 percent for each year. The Committee has shown concern on the issue and recommended to NBP for increasing the pension to their retired employees.
Comments
Comments are closed.