Finance Minister AMA Muhith directed the Bank and Financial Institutions Division (BFID) to speed up implementation process of new pay scales of Bangladesh Bank and four state-owned commercial banks so the employees got increased salaries soon.
The directive was made in a letter to Banking Division Secretary M Aslam Alam yesterday.
The sectary said the pay scales had been stuck in the finance division which administered the implementation department. He said without assistance of the implementation department the new pay scales was impossible to be implemented.
Last month the law ministry informed the implementation department of finance division that the separate pay scale for Bangladesh Bank employees could be executed under the existing legal framework and amendment would not be required.
Bangladesh Bank and the four state-owned banks have a total of 61,000 staff whose salaries will increase by 70% after implementation of the pay scales.
In the letter, the minister also directed the division to take steps to offload shares of state-owned banks and enterprises within the present tenure of the government.
According to the document, the division has been asked to start initial works immediately to off-load state banks’ shares.
Although such decision was made for several times before, no progress was seen. The letter said BFID would sit soon with Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) and Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB) to make a specific timeframe to offload SoE shares.
Besides, in 2010, the finance ministry agreed to a proposal suggested by the World Bank to “divest” a certain portion of government shares of the currently 100% state-owned commercial banks to the stock market to shore up the capital-starved public banks and improve their fragile management.
As part of the process, ICB was made issue manager of the three state-owned banks. Assets and liabilities of the state-owned banks have already been calculated.
Earlier, the finance minister was disappointed at the poor performance of the state enterprises in divesting their shares as only seven SoEs out of 27 had so far offloaded their shares.
The state-run enterprises were supposed to offload their stakes up to 49% in the stock market by August 2011, a timeframe approved by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
However, only five SoEs - Jamuna Oil Company Ltd, Meghna Petroleum Company Ltd, Eastern Lubricants Ltd, National Tubes Ltd, Bangladesh Shipping Corporation, Rupali Bank Ltd and Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd complied with the government’s instruction and off-loaded their shares.