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I was morally

bound to resign,

says Akram Khatoon

KARACHI: The First Women Bank (FWB) may get a male president if any suitable female candidate can not be found. This was stated here on Friday by the out-going president of the bank, Ms Akram Khatoon, referring to her telephonic conversation with the Governor, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Dr Ishrat Hussain.

The SBP governor indicated that a male candidate may be appointed if they did not find a suitable lady for the job," she said addressing a press conference.

She said that names of two senior most executives Ñ Mrs Zareen Aziz and Ms Tahira Reza Ñ have been forwarded for the post.

About her resignation, Akram Khatoon said that it was almost two years now that she had been tendering her resignation. "It is purely on technical grounds that I offered resignation. I have achieved the age of super-annuation and would definitely like to be replaced by of the aspirants in the line," she said.

"I told the (SBP) governor that I am moraly bond to resign, and had been explaining the situation even to the Ministry of Finance for the past two years," she said.

Akram Khatoon said that she was leaving the bank in 1997. However, the government decision to privatise the bank caused delay in her exist.

"The government had in July 1997 declared that the bank would be privatised in the next three months, but it never happened," she said.

On the pretext of privatisation of the bank, the SBP had then stopped all normal financing facilities to FWB, she added.

"FWB staff did not get any promotion and we also were barred from making any recruitment. Major operations of the bank were frozen," she said.

Moreover, an NGO of women also filed a petition in Lahore High Court (LHC) against the privatisation of the bank and the case "is still pending".

The FWB founder-president said the SBP governor has informed her that the privatisation of the bank has been postponed for the time being, and till then the bank could continue its normal banking operations.

Referring to the performance of the bank since its establishment in 1989, she said that the bank developed 16,000 new women entrepreneurs both in urban and rural sector all over the country. Out of that, 14,000 are the women who have set up micro-businesses. Disbursement of Rs 3,400 million to small and micro-enterprises created job opportunities for 516,800. Apart from that, the bank disbursed 700 loans for housing improvement in interior Sindh and now this programme is being extended to NWFP.

The bank extended credit lines for various rural support programme worth Rs 20 million through which more than 5,000 small borrowers have benefited.

She said the bank's operational profit for the year ending December 31, 1999, was Rs 22.5 million and its deposits and advances have shown an increase of Rs 16 percent over last year's figure.ÑAPP