The Pakistani Spectator

The scandalous issue of distribution of bonuses to the tune of millions of rupees among the three top guns of the Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) in the last two years refuses to die down. State Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and two opposition senators Pervez Rashid and Saleem Saifullah jumped into the fray on Friday.

This multi-million rupees scam might have been buried in the official files of the SECP had Senator Saleem Saifullah Khan not questioned this self-gratification at the cost of taxpayers.

Pervez Rashid and Saifullah Khan, talking to The News, wondered how anyone could justify paying huge bonuses of Rs 11.5 million to themselves as was done by the SECP top guns, including former chairman Raziur Rehman Khan, incumbent Chairman Salman Ali Sheikh and Rashid Malik. They had declared themselves as the “best performers” in the SECP and pocketed millions of public money.

Minister of State for Finance Hina Rabbani Khar, who laid down the details of the scandalous payments, called this correspondent to express her annoyance at the description of her argument as being a “laughable excuse” and defended the payment of these huge bonuses to the three privileged SECP top functionaries on the ground of “one having to hire people from the market on competitive packages”.

Senator Pervez Rashid, who too had participated in the debate on this question in the House on Thursday, however, had his own legitimate counter arguments. Senator Pervez Rashid, talking to The News, questioned the justification of self-payment of such huge bonuses only to three people of the SECP, who occupied the top positions. But he hit the nail on the head when he said that he failed to understand the logic of paying hefty bonuses to top officers of a government-run organisation, which was not even involved in any commercial activity, nor had even demonstrated any exceptional performance. “I can understand paying bonuses to top officials or the employees of the government-run organisations or corporations, if they were involved in some commercial activity and had earned huge profits, say like the PTV. But I am at total loss to fathom the justification of three top bosses of the SECP walking away with Rs 12 million in the garb of highly subjective ‘performance bonuses’ while the SECP was neither a commercial organisation nor was it involved in any kind of profit-earning activity.”

Likewise, Senator Rashid said for him the most scandalous thing was that these three big guns recommended their own names first while being a part of the SECP to the Policy Board, where they got it approved with the chairman himself being a member of the board. Senator Rashid said that he would move for the matter to be investigated and probed at relevant forums.

Senator Salim Saifullah Khan said if this would continue, the senators might also demand similar kind of ‘performance bonuses’. He said this was only one department about which they came to know of bonus payments in such a manner.

Saifullah Khan confirmed that his brother Anwar Saifullah Khan, who was recently made the member of the policy board SECP, had actually informed him about these huge payments to these three officials and he had then put the question to get further details.

Meanwhile, the SECP, in a press note sent to The News, has confirmed these payments to the former MD and two commissioners, one of whom is now the chairman. It said two commissioners, along with the chairman, were entitled to guaranteed and performance bonuses in accordance with the provisions of the Commission’s HR Hand Book 2007 and Policy Board’s approval.

In addition to the commissioners and chairman, the guaranteed and performance bonuses have also been awarded to all officers of the SECP as per policy. The press note, however, does not give details of other officers who may have been paid the performance bonuses.

By Rauf Klasara in NEWS