PTI has another sugar axe to grind

No response from UK over Sharif’s sugar mills money transfer: SECP

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has decided to bring an eight-year-old case of the Chaudhry Sugar Mills on the agenda of a parliamentary panel after the corporate sector regulator has confirmed that it wrote to the UK authorities seeking information about a suspected financial transaction by the company.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) had taken up the issue of the suspected Rs680 million transaction by the Chaudhry Sugar Mills with the UK financial authorities, said its commissioner on Thursday.



Tahir Mehmood was responding to a question raised by MNA Asad Umer of the PTI during a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family own the sugar mills. Umer inquired whether the SECP had ever taken up the issue of the suspected financial transaction by the Chaudhry Sugar Mills with the UK authorities.

“It is an old issue and we had written a letter, but we could not get the requisite information,” said Mehmood.

The commissioner said it was an issue of the suspected Rs680 million financial transaction of 2008. He, however, clarified that the regulator never launched a formal investigation against the company.

Chaudhry Sugar Mills officers had explained the case well, and after that the SECP decided to close the matter, said Mehmood. He said the UK authorities did not provide the requisite information on the grounds that it would not share information about politically-exposed persons.

The PTI lawmaker asked the SECP to present the response of the UK authorities and other details of the case in the next meeting.

However, committee chairman Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh of the PML-N said the documents could only be sought if the matter was brought on the agenda. Umar would now formally move a request to put the issue on the agenda of the meeting.



PML-N’s Talal Ahmad Chaudhry apprehended that the information might be used for political purposes. Mian Abdul Manan of the PML-N suggested that the SECP should share the details of all such cases with the standing committee instead of singling out a company related to the prime minister.

According to an article written by Dr Ikramul Haq, the prime minister had shown salary income from the Chaudhry Sugar Mills in tax years 2011 and 2012 in which he claimed 2.1 million shares valuing at Rs16 million.

Haq wrote that the PM virtually controls this entity. In his article, ‘Tough Times for PM’, the writer states that the PM has declared even remunerations from the Chaudhry Sugar Mills while holding the office of the prime minister of Pakistan.

The standing committee also took a briefing on the inquiry status of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) Bangladesh scam worth Rs18.5 billion. The committee showed its displeasure over the performance of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) with regard to delay in the investigation against the officials involved in the scam.

NAB Director Ghulam Farooq informed the committee that the bureau would soon complete the investigation launched in April. However, the committee was not satisfied with the response, saying NAB had given similar assurances earlier.

The standing committee sought an interim report of the NAB’s investigation in its next meeting.

The committee also raised the issue of The Express Tribune story in which it was reported that the sitting president of the NBP, Syed Iqbal Ashraf, was also under investigation in the scam.

The NBP president denied that he was being investigated by NAB. The committee directed NAB officials to submit whether the NBP president was under investigation in any manner in its next meeting.

NAB was investigating the sitting NBP president on allegations of providing shelter to the main accused in the $185 million fraud case in the bank’s Bangladesh operations, according to the official documents available with The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 2^nd, 2016.