Bok’s IT system failure disrupts govt employees’ salary payment

Government employees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are facing difficulties as the IT system failure at the Bank of Khyber (BOK) has disrupted salary payments. This marks the third instance in the past three months where the IT system failure has inconvenienced customers, including government employees and private institutions relying on the bank for financial transactions. Despite the bank’s expenditure of over 800 million rupees on the system, system crashes persist, causing significant inconvenience to account holders. The continuous failures have led to the transfer of many significant account holders to other banks, impacting the bank’s profits over the past fiscal year. The bank also incurred additional expenses by relocating its IT system to Islamabad. The poor performance of the bank and its failure to provide satisfactory services to account holders have raised concerns among three independent directors on the Bok’s Board of Directors: Asad Ali Shah, Tahir Javed, and Javed Hashmat. They have attributed the crisis to the Managing Director of the bank and expressed their objections regarding the bank’s underperformance, governance issues, and management concerns. In a letter addressed to KP Chief Minister, the three directors, representing the majority of shareholders, have raised their concerns and urged immediate attention from other significant shareholders. They emphasized that the issues at hand cannot be resolved solely at the board level, necessitating the involvement of major shareholders. Despite previous concerns raised by the board members in August, no action was taken by the previous PTI government. The financial performance of the BOK in the industry has been disappointing, with a 62% decline in profits, amounting to 420 million rupees, compared to the approved budget for the fiscal year 2021. Efforts to contact the Managing Director, Muhammad Ali Gul Afridi, for comments on the matter have been unsuccessful.