Parliamentary Secretary for Finance, Abdul Waheed, told Punjab Assembly on Monday that by 2013 all branches of Bank of Punjab (BoP) will be profitable. He was responding to a question of a member during question hour. He said adequate steps were being taken to recover loans in order to make all those BoP branches, running in to deficit, profitable. "The bank's target is to make all its branches profitable by 2013. However, at present a majority of the branches are running in profit," he added.
He told the House that when they took over Punjab government, the bank was in a bad shape; in December 2008 the bank was facing a loss of over Rs 10 billion. He said during the previous government, Bank of Punjab sanctioned loans on fake documents. "However, due to prudent policies the losses were controlled. After identifying the wrongdoings in the bank, a strategy was made to recover the bad loans," he added.
To a question, he also clarified that the bank's chairman and president were getting salary and perks in accordance with the rules and regulation set by State Bank of Pakistan. Punjab Forest and Wildlife Minister Ahmed Ali Aulakh also responded to the MPAs' questions. Meanwhile, six newly elected MPAs took oath from Speaker Rana Iqbal, out of whom four belonged to N-League and one each from PPP and Q-League. The House also took up adjournment and privilege motions, and call attention notice. Later, Chairman Dr Asad Ashraf adjourned the House till Tuesday morning.