Dr Asim indicted in Rs462 billion corruption case

Former petroleum minister says charges leveled against him by National Accountability Bureau are false

KARACHI: An accountability court in Karachi on Friday indicted former petroleum minister Dr Asim Hussain and five others in a corruption case involving Rs462 billion.

However, Dr Asim, who is also a close confidante of former president and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Asif Ali Zardari, pleaded not guilty in the case, saying the charges leveled against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) were false.

Dr Asim — who also heads Ziauddin hospitals’ trust-owned private health facilities — is facing allegations of extending a ‘huge’ loss to the national exchequer by misusing his powers as a federal minister.



The top accountability body had filed two references against the former minister and his alleged associates including former civil servants and some private persons.

The first reference, which was filed on February 25, pertains to an alleged scam, in which gas was curtailed illegally to the agriculture sector to benefit a particular group associated with the fertilizer industry. NAB contends the price of fertilizers was arbitrarily hiked and Dr Asim received kickbacks in return.

Furthermore, the same reference reads about land scam, public fraud and money laundering. The overall amount involved in this investigation is Rs462.5 billion. Former petroleum and natural resources secretary Ejaz Chaudhry, Karachi Docks Labour Board’s former CEO Safdar Hussain, Karachi Development Authority’s ex-directors Syed Athar Hussain and Masood Haider Jaffery, and Ziauddin group finance director Abdul Hameed have also been named as co-accused.

The other reference, filed on March 5, revolves around illegal award of contracts to a privately-managed gas processing company, Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited (JJVL). According to NAB, the private company was allowed to process gas from five fields in lower Sindh without conducting an open auction, signing agreements and other necessary procedures.



The prosecution alleges that the private company was given the contract without an open auction being held, agreements being signed or other necessary procedures required by the law to make the process transparent.

During the course of this alleged illegal process, a total loss of Rs17.3 billion was caused to the national exchequer due to the misuse of authority by the former minister, Sui Southern Gas Company’s (SSGC) incumbent managing director Khalid Rehman and other former top officials Zuhair Siddiqui, Azeem Iqbal, Shoaib Warsi, Yusuf Jamil Ansari, Malik Usman, Oil and Gas Development Company Limited’s (OGDCL) former managing director Basharat Mirza and another official Zahid Bakhtiar. JJVL’s chief executive officer Iqbal Ahmed is also nominated is this case.

The NAB had obtained custody of Dr Asim on December 11 in connection with an inquiry regarding misuse of authority in allotment of plots and encroachment of state land for Dr Ziauddin Hospital Trust, fraud with public by running a charity hospital on commercial basis, kickbacks and commission through fertilizer cartel for illegal curtailment and money-laundering.



Dr Asim, chairman of the Sindh Higher Education Commission and a friend of former president Asif Ali Zardari, was also facing charges of abetting and harbouring terrorists at his family-owned hospitals in Karachi.

After spending 90 days in the custody of paramilitary Rangers, who detained him on August 26, he was handed over to the Karachi police for further interrogation. The police, however, relieved him of the charges and got him released, sparking a tussle between the federal and provincial governments.