By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue has ordered the country’s central bank to stop commercial banks forcing female employees to wear abayas and headscarves, demanding immediate enforcement of a dress code policy the committee first laid down more than a year ago.
The instruction came on Wednesday as the committee, chaired by Senator Saleem Mandviwalla, revisited complaints that had been raised with it previously — that women working at several financial institutions, including Islamic banks, were still being pressured into strict religious dress despite the panel’s earlier ruling that a modest national dress code, not a specific religious garment, was all that should be required.
“All banks should issue a circular and share it with us,” Mandviwalla told State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Jameel Ahmed, instructing him to make certain lenders halt the practice.
The matter was brought before the committee by Senator Dr Zarqa Suharwardy Taimur of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, who said female staff at Islamic banks and the Bank of Punjab were still under pressure to comply, notwithstanding the committee’s previous directives on the issue. Male employees, she noted, faced no equivalent restriction and were free to dress as they chose.
“You mean to say they are forced to wear that dress?” Mandviwalla asked her.
“Yes,” she replied, telling the committee that banks had failed to properly communicate any revised policy to their staff. She called on the institutions to formally notify employees of the rules and to hold awareness sessions so that women knew where they stood.
“The women working in these banks, they need to be told,” she said, adding that many female staff felt they were on the receiving end of biased treatment. Taimur told the committee that a number of employees were reluctant to raise the issue publicly, fearing it could cost them their jobs.
Senator Sherry Rehman backed the concerns raised by her colleague, framing the issue as one of workplace rights rather than personal choice. “This institutionalisation of dress codes against women in banks is absolutely wrong,” she said. “It’s not a question of hot or cold weather. There is a fundamental, basic principle to this.”
Rehman said she had heard directly from women who described discriminatory treatment, particularly within Sharia-compliant banking operations. “Active discrimination happens, you are told you cannot be dressed like this,” she said. “People are encouraged to wear tight abayas, especially for Sharia-compliant banking… This is institutional and absolutely should be in compliance with Pakistan’s national dress that is totally modest, and you have no right to go beyond that in the private sector either.”
She pointed out that a shalwar kameez — the attire worn by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto — met the standard of modesty the state itself had already defined for women, just as it had for men, and that nothing beyond this ought to be demanded of bank employees.
Governor Ahmed told the committee the central bank had already relayed the panel’s earlier decision to every commercial bank, following discussions held in late 2025. “The banks amended their HR policies where dress codes were previously defined,” he said. “Every bank made its policy consistent and gave us confirmation of it. Now, if there is an implementation issue anywhere, please tell us specifically.”
Reading directly from the policy wording, Ahmed added: “There shall be no compulsion on female employees to wear the abaya or any specific religious dress.”
Meezan Bank’s representative on the panel, Khalid Zaman Khan, said his institution had complied in full. “State Bank communicated that to us. We have fully implemented it in our HR policy,” he told the committee.
Mandviwalla was not satisfied with the assurance and pressed the bank to produce documentary evidence. “Show us what you have implemented. Give us a copy of it,” he said. “We only wrote ‘modest dressing’ and nothing else.”
The committee closed the matter by directing the SBP governor to ensure every bank issues a fresh circular reaffirming that no female employee can be compelled to wear an abaya, headscarf or any other specific religious garment, and ordered all banks to submit their existing dress code policies for review. The central bank was told to circulate updated guidance across the sector to guard against employees facing what the committee called unnecessary compulsion.
Honorarium dispute escalates
The session also saw Mandviwalla take aim at the government’s failure to implement the committee’s earlier instruction that Senate staff be paid a budget honorarium, after officials said the matter was now sub judice. The payment of such honorariums — typically equivalent to five months’ salary — to government and parliamentary staff around the annual budget has long been a source of lobbying and political wrangling.
Mandviwalla insisted Parliament had already passed the relevant law and that no court had jurisdiction to intervene. “Have we ever interfered in judicial matters? Have we ever asked why they are taking so much in salaries? How can they interfere in our domain?” he asked, saying he wanted the payments made to Senate employees without further delay.
He instructed the finance ministry to go back to the Supreme Court and set out the legal position, warning that a notice of privilege motion would follow if the issue was not settled within seven days.
The committee also took up the continued non-issuance of revised payslips to directors, staff and private secretaries of the Senate Secretariat by the Accountant General Pakistan Revenues (AGPR). Mandviwalla gave the authorities concerned seven days to resolve the matter, warning that failure to comply would result in referral to the Senate Privileges Committee, according to a statement issued after the meeting. AGPR officials had briefed the committee on the matter earlier this month, asking for more time, while Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and AGPR representatives stopped short of committing to the honorarium payments without first securing a formal legal opinion.
Banking access for politically exposed persons
Separately, the committee examined complaints about the difficulties faced by bank customers classified as Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) in dealing with commercial lenders. MNA Muhammad Moin Amir Pirzada told the panel that despite earlier instructions to designate dedicated officers to handle such cases — including at the SBP itself — no uniform standard operating procedure had been put in place across the sector.
Pirzada said his own bank account had been closed in April this year and that repeated correspondence with both the bank and the SBP had gone unanswered. He called for a standardised annual data update mechanism to prevent similar cases arising in future.
Governor Ahmed acknowledged that regulations covering PEP-related cases already existed but said the failure in this instance had occurred at branch level. He told the committee a backup officer had since been designated and gave assurances that a dedicated focal person would also be appointed to handle such matters going forward.
The committee said uniform procedures were needed across the banking sector, a point echoed by the finance minister, who described standardised processes as essential to effective customer service and grievance redress, according to the statement.
Investment incentives and electricity taxation
On investment policy, Senator Manzoor Ahmed proposed extending the incentives currently attached to the Reko Diq project to other investment projects around the country. Finance ministry officials told the committee that only one project currently met the existing criteria and that the state of public finances did not allow similar concessions to be extended more widely. Aurangzeb told the committee that future proposals would nonetheless be considered within the fiscal space available.
The committee also discussed the level of tax collected through electricity bills, with Senator Kamil Ali Agha raising concerns about the burden this places on consumers. Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Muhammad Rashid Langrial told the committee that approximately Rs476 billion had been collected through electricity bills, comprising Rs351 billion in sales tax and Rs124 billion in adjustable withholding income tax. He said sales tax charged on electricity formed part of the wider sales tax regime applied across the country.
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