Just wanted to share this story from Dawn's Business pages with everyone, which certainly made MY eyes pop. It's worth reading.
Here is what it basically reports:
"A foreign-sponsored local bank has called shareholders to an extraordinary general meeting on Oct 19 at which Item three on the agenda would be of interest.
It seeks to obtain shareholders’ approval of remuneration to be paid to non-executive directors of the bank’s board for attending board meetings and its committee meetings.
Some market watchers believe that the proposed scale of the sitting fees of directors is preposterous. Chairman and deputy chairman (DC) would receive a packet of US$25,000 per meeting, while other members on the board would be handed down $10,000 for every time the board meets.
Converted at Rs82.85 to a dollar, chairman and DC would receive Rs2 million and other members on the board Rs0.8 million per head.
The board meets on an average five times a year, so that the directors would be able to reward themselves with Rs10 million for the top two men and four million for each of the other six non-executive directors."
For readers' information, the bank Dawn was too coy to name, is UBL.
Now go back and read it again. Or actually go and read the whole story, which puts things into more perspective. As a further reference, let me point out that an entity such as Sui Southern Gas Company pays its non-executive directors an honorarium of around Rs. 10,000 - 15,000 for their time, per meeting. Which seems fair enough since the board members are not really employees of the company.
And you thought all that "excessive emoluments" category was limited to the AIGs and Lehman Brothers of this world. Of course, Junaid Jamshed will probably say these rates were fixed by the morning angel and this is the way Allah meant it to be.
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