NA body asks SBP to submit details of written-off loans

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance here on Tuesday directed the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to submit the details of loans amounting to Rs50 million, which were written-off since 2001 to 2018 from different commercial banks in the country.

The committee, which met here with Qaiser Ahmad Sheikh in the chair, also asked the SBP for providing details of criteria under which the loans were written-off by different private banks and it also sought the proposals for strengthening the Bankruptcy Law to recover the outstanding money of the public.

Meanwhile, member of the committee Rana Hayat Khan told the meeting that there were so many examples that many business families had borrowed the money from the banks and did not pay off their debts.

He told the meeting that even the properties mortgaged were still in possession of the defaulters, he said and stressed the need for amending the laws in this regard.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal informed the meeting that borrowing was the job of banks, which are regulated by SBP and there was a proper mechanism in place for writing-off the loans.

He further said that many loan write-off cases were being proceeded in the banking and other courts for the settlement from many years.

Meanwhile, the senior officials of the SBP apprised the meeting that so far about 41,000 loans write-off cases worth Rs 421 billion were pending in the courts for settlement.

They informed the committee that the board of directors of the banks were authorized to write-off loans and the banks were bound to show all the details of write-off amount in their annual audit reports.

The officials of the Finance Ministry informed the meeting that Pakistan was closely working with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and was associated with it since 2007, where as there were many countries, which were the members of the force.

He said that legislation against anti-money laundering was strengthened and it was acknowledged by the international financial institutions. He said that Pakistan was also working to achieve the best international standards in this regard by removing the deficiencies if any.

He said that in this regard a team of United Nations Security Council has visited Islamabad, which was briefed about the actions so far taken to fulfill the deficiencies and future action plan.

He said that some countries were hatching conspiracy against Pakistan in international forums but there were proper laws existing in the country against anti-money laundering, adding that there was no probability that Pakistan would enter in the grey list of FATF.

The meeting was attended by the Members of National Assembly including Mustafa Mehmood, Rana Hayat Khan, Asad Omer and State Minister for Finance.

The senior officials of SBP, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and Ministry of Finance and other allied departments also attended the meeting.