PESHAWAR: Speaker of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Asad Qaiser on Monday formed a special committee of the house to probe the Bank of Khyber scam afresh and said the committee would comprise all parliamentary leaders and a chief minister`s nominee.

The development came during a debate on ANP parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak`s adjournment motion on the matter, including alleged illegal recruitments in the bank owned by the provincial government.

The BoK scandal surfaced in April 2016 when its managing director leveled many allegations of interference in the bank`s affairs against finance minister Muzafar Syed though newspaper advertisements.

The minister responded by publishing advertisements in the newspapers to clarify his position. He also leveled counter-allegation against the BoK`s MD.

During Monday`s session, finance minister Muzafar Said insisted that his department`s right to manage the administrative affairs of the BoK had been usurped by the planning and development department in violation of the rules of business.

He said under the rules of business, the finance department was authorised to take decisions about the bank`s affairs but the planning and development department had been doing it since the scam surfaced in 2016.

`Despite official correspondence of the finance secretary, the P&D department is not ready to abandon its `illegal occupation` of the Bank of Khyber,` he insisted.

The minister said the P&D department had been managing the BoK affairs since he had removed the chairman of the bank`s board for violation of the provincial rights.

He said the law departments in its legal opinion had declared the P&D department`s all orders issued regarding BoK illegal.

`In its opinion, the law department had also stated that for legalising, all orders issued by the P&D should be cancelled and to be re-issued by the finance department, he said.The minister said for bringing the issue into the ambit of law, a summery was issued by the finance department in 2015 for the chief minister but that summary stuck in the office of the chief secretary.

`It is on record that the incumbent BoK managing director has been appointed in violation of rules and regulations,` he said.

He said the internal and external scrutiny committees had not shortlisted the name of Shamsul Qayoum for the slot of MD as he was not fulfilling the criteria but despite that, he was appointed as MD by authorities at that time.

The minister also endorsed the earlier demand of the opposition lawmakers to form a special committee of the house for fresh probe into the scandal within 15 days andproduce thereportinthehouse.

He also demanded probe into the P&D department`s violation for the misuse of the finance department`s power.

The minister alleged that the authorities at the helm of BoK affairs were bent upon privatising the bank, an asset of the province.

Earlier, debate on the BoK scam was initiated by ANP leader Sardar Babak while speaking on his adjournment motion.

He said BoK was a major source of income of the province and a valuable assetbut the previous four annual reports revealed that the income of BoK was on decline.

The ANP leader said the findings of the probe into the bank scam conducted by a committee of ministers wasn`t shared with the house despite the chief minister`s directives.

He said the losses of BoK would reach Rs3 billion by the end of 2018.

`Despite the chief minister`s repeated directives, the finance secretary failed to initiate probe into irregularities in the BoK recruitment,` he said.

Mr Babak said 1,450 employees had been recruited in the BoK during the last four years in violation of the law.

He demanded the chair form a special committee of the house to probe the scam afresh.

Raja Faisal Zaman of the PML-N, Sahibzada Sanaullah and Fakhar Azam Wazir of the PPP, Mufti Syed Janan of the JUI-F and other lawmakers also supported the demand.

The house also passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mental Health Bill, 2017 and The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Civil Courts (Amendment) Bill, 2017.

The chair adjourned the session until Tuesday.