Watan Party asks political elite to cough up country’s money

Application filed to recover Rs465 billion in loans to political and social elites of the country.

LAHORE: An application filed in the Supreme Court’s Lahore Registry prays for court’s direction to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to recover Rs465 billion in loans to political and social elites of the country that have been written off.

Watan Party filed the application through Barrister Zafarullah Khan into its petition for recovery of written off loans already pending in the Supreme Court.

The petitioner stated that the SBP’s monetary policy under which loans of influential families were written off violates public policy and law. The SBP, it said, favours the elite and its failure to recover public money has caused a loss to the national exchequer.

He said that the SBP’s policy is discriminatory and is in conflict with Article 38 and 39 of the Constitution.

He said that the economic condition of the country cannot allow for following such a policy. He said from 2001 to 2007, the SBP had written off loans by public sector banks which had played havoc with the country’s economy. This, he said, had led to bad debts and inflation.

The petitioner said that the practices of giving out political loans, lending at high interest rates and writing off loans had been a major cause of inflation as the SBP and its scheduled banks had increased its lending interest rate to 13.3 per cent, hindering the growth of the economy.

It said that from 2001 to 2009, loans worth Rs193 billion were written off for political families or companies with strong political backing. This number was Rs120 billion from 1985 to 1999 and Rs152 billion from 1999 to 2007.

The petitioner had attached a list of beneficiaries of loans that were written off and the amount that they defaulted on. According to the list, the Sharif family defaulted on payment of Rs3 billion, Chaudhry Shujaat’s family Rs1.2 billion, Sardar Jaffar Khan Leghari Rs338 million.

The petition maintained that Tehmina Durrani had not paid Rs106 million, Samina Peerzada Rs1.7 million and Maj Gen (retd) Mian Abdul Qayoom Rs900 million. The petitioner prayed that the application be made part of the main petition and that the loans be recovered. It also prayed that the SBP be directed to revise its loan policy. The main petition is fixed for October 29 in the Supreme Court.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2010.