KARACHI: National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) received an Audit Report from the Office of the Director General Commercial Audit & Evaluation (South), Department of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) on the 28th of December covering the period 2012 to 2020.

In order to seek clarifications from AGP on statements made and data quoted in the report, a meeting was held on January 05th 2022 at the NBP Head Office in Karachi, where the AGP office was led by Director General (South) and included two other senior members.

During this meeting, the AGP team informed NBP that the said Audit Report should be construed as a compilation of their preliminary observations which are yet to be reviewed and finalized after deliberations with NBP management i.e. the report is in draft form. The NBP management pointed out several factual errors in the report in actual paragraphs and the AGP officers agreed to review these and amend wherever warranted.

In discussions with NBP seniors, the AGP has expressed concerns at the premature release of the referenced confidential draft observation report that is circulating in the media and confirmed that they are conducting an internal inquiry on this violation of protocol. As per process, whenever the report is finalized after discussion with NBP management, it will be available in the public domain on the AGP website.—PR